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Fac-simile of 
MR. DICKENS'S HANDWRITING. 



Part of a Letter to a Friend. 




CHARLES DICKENS, 

At the age of 29. 

From a Drawing by Count D^Orsay, taken on the completion of 
''The Old Curiosity Shop:' 



Charles Dickens. 



^t Stors of [)X5 Cifc. 



BY THE 



AUTHOR OF THE "LIFE OF THACKERAY.'^ 




BLEAK HOUSE, AT BROADSTAIRS. 



JVITJI ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES, 






N E W YO R K: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1870. 






" Oh, potent wizard ! painter of great skill ! 

Blending with life's realities the hues 

Of a rich fancy : sweetest of all singers ! 
Charming the public ear, and, at thy will. 

Searching the soul of him thou dost amuse, 

And the warm heart's recess, where mem'ry lingers, 
And child-like love, and sympathy, and truth. 

And every blessed feeling which the world 

Had frozen or repressed with its stern apathy 
For human suffering ! ' Crabbed age and youth,' 

And beauty, smiling tearful, turn to thee, 
Whose * Carol ' is an allegory fine, 
The burden of whose * Chimes ' is holy and benign !" 

Douglas Jerrold's Magazine. 

Bequost 

Albert Adsit Olemona 

Aug. 24, 1038 

(Not available for exchange) 



PRELIMINARY. 



THE following brief Memoir of tlie late Mr. Charles Dickens may, per- 
haps, be acceptable as filling an intermediate place between the news- 
paper or review article and the more elaborate biography which may be 
expected in due course. The writer had some peculiar means of acquiring 
information for the purpose of his sketch ; and to this he has added such 
particulars as have been already made public in English and foreign publi- 
cations and other scattered sources. 

The common complaints against memoirs of this necessarily hasty and 
incomplete character will not be repeated by those who are accustomed to 
test questions in morals by the principles which underlie them. That there 
is nothing necessarily indelicate or improper in the desire of the public to 
obtain some personal knowledge of the great and good who have just passed 
away, is assumed by every daily, weekly, and quarterly journal, which, on 
occasions of this kind, furnish their readers with such details as they are 
able to obtain, and which in no case confine themselves strictly to the pub- 
lic career of the deceased. 

Although some facts in the private life of Mr. Dickens will be found to 
be touched upon in these pages, the writer is not conscious of having writ- 
ten a line which could give pain to others. 

In view of a second edition — should one be called for — the writer will be 
obliged by the receipt of any additional particulars which may assist in 
completing the outline memoir which now leaves his hand. 

He can not, however, conclude without acknowledging the kind assist- 
ance he has received in furnishing anecdotes and other particulars from 
Mr. Arthur Locker, Mr. E. S. Dallas, Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, Mr. James 
Grant, Dr. Charles Mackay, Mr. Mitchell, of Bond Street (for permission to 
make reductions of Leslie's beautiful picture, and Count D'Orsay's charac- 
teristic portrait), Mr. Edmund Oilier, Mr. E. P. Hingston, Mr. Allen, Mr. J. 
Colam (Secretary to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), 
the writers of interesting articles in the "Daily News" and the "Observer," 
and to Mr. Hablot K. Browne, for his admirable study of the chief charac- 
ters drawn by him for the late Mr. Dickens's works. 

It would have been impossible to have given the data contained in this 
little book, in the rather short time occupied in its preparation, but for the 
hearty assistance of Mr. H. T. Taverner, an industrious litterateur^ who had 
already gathered some particulars of the great novelist's public career. 

London, 29fA Jwne, 1870. 



A TRIBUTE 

TO 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

By the Hon. Mks. Norton. 
{From Albert Schloss's '■'■English Bijou Almanac'''' for 1842.) 

" Not merely thine the tribute praise, 

Which greets an author's progress here; 
Not merely thine the fabled bays, 

Whose verdure brightens his career; 
Thine the pure triumph to have taught 

Thy brother man a gentle jDart; 
In every line a fervent thought, 

Which gushes from thy generous heart: 
For thine are words which rouse up all 

The dormant good among us found — 
Like drops which from a fountain fall, 

To bless and fertilize the ground !" 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Early Career Page 11 

CHAPTER II. 
Publication of tlie " Pickwick Papers " 17 

CHAPTER III. 
Popularity of the ' ' Pickwick Papers " 23^ 

CHAPTER IV. 

Dickens as a Dramatist. —' ' Oliver Twist " . . 25 

CHAPTER V. 

The Copyright of ' ' Oliver Twist " 28 

CHAPTER VI. 
" Nicholas Nickleby " SG 

CHAPTER VII. 

Publication of "The Old Curiosity Shop" 
and "Baruaby Rudge." — Dickens's Ra- 
vens. — "Barnabv Rudge" Dramatized. — 
" The Picnic Papers " 32 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Dickens's Visit to America 36 

CHAPTER IX. 
Further American Experiences 40 

CHAPTER X. 
" Martin Chuzzlewit " 42 

CHAPTER XI. 
The " Christmas Carol" 45 

CHAPTER XII. 
Visit to Italy.—' ' The Chimes " 48 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Dickens as an Actor 50 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Dickens as a Journalist Page 52 

CHAPTER XV. 
Appearance of " Dombey and Son " 53 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Victor Hugo.—' ' The Haunted Man " 55 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Dickens and Thackeray. — "David Copper- 
field.' ' — On Capital Punishment , 57 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

"Household Words."— The Guild of Lite- 
rature 60 

CHAPTER XIX. 
' ' Bleak House. ' '—Leigh Hunt 64 

CHAPTER XX. 
American Publishers. — The First Reading . . 66 

CHAPTER XXI. 

" Hard Times."—" Seven Poor Travellers." 
— The Dinner to Thackeray. — Johnson's 
Goddaughter.-" Holly-tree Inn " 68 

CHAPTER XXII. 

"Little Dorrit."— "Travelling Abroad."— 
Tavistock House Theatricals 70 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

Works translated into French. — Dickens 
and Thackeray 73 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Royal Dramatic College. — Discontinuance 
of " Household Words."—" All the Year 
Round" 77 

CHAPTER XXV. 
" The Uncommercial Traveller " 80 



10 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Mr. Dickens and the Electors of Finsbury. — 
" Tom Tiddler's Ground."—" Somebody's 
Luggage."— " Mrs. Lirriper's Lodginghs." 
— " Pincher " Page 81 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

"Our Mutual Friend."— The Staplehurst 
Accident. — "Miss Berwick." — "Dr. Mar- 
igold's Prescriptions." — Dickens at the 
Mansion House. — Clarkson Stanfield. — 
The Printers' Readers 84 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
SecondVisitto America.— Pedestrian Tastes 88 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Farewell Readings.— Failing Health. ... 92 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Interview with the Queen. — Last Illness. — 
Death. — Burial in Westminster Abbey. — 
Funeral Sermon.— His last Resting-place. 96 



APPENDIX. 

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES. 

The First Hint of " Pickwick " Page 103 

Dickens and the " Morning Chronicle " 10.3 

Portraits of Dickens i04 

The Names of Dickens's Characters 105 

Description of " Boz " in 1844 1U5 

Description of Dickens in 1852 105 

Boz's Table Habits 105 

The MS. of " Oliver Twist " 106 

Dickens's Benevolence 106 

Hook and Dickens 106 

Methodical Habits and Perseverance 106 

Manner of Literary Composition 106 

" The Chief" 107 

Blue Ink 107 

Dickens in Private Life 107 

Sympathy with Working-men 107 

A Beggar's Estimate of his Generosity 107 

Paragraph Disease 107 

Dickens and Thackeray 107 

Anecdote of Abraham Lincoln 108 

The Contributors to "Household Words". 108 

" The Mystery of Edwin Drood " 109 

Gad's Hill House 109 



I 



CHARLES DICKENS: 



THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 




EOOHESTER CASTLE, AS SEEN FROM THE RAILWAY 
BRIDGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY C ARE ER. 

THE " Story of the Life " of England's great- 
est novelist requires but little introduc- 
tion. Of his ancestors but few particulars are 
recorded, and these are entirely witho'^t inter- 
est as having any connection with the late il- 
lustrious bearer of the name. 

Charles Dickens* was born at Landport, 
Portsmouth, on the 7th Pebruary, 1812, his 
father, Mr. John Dickens, being a clerk in the 
Navy Pay 0£Sce at that sea-port. His duties 
required that he should reside from time to time 
in different naval stations — now at Plymouth, 
now at Portsmouth, and then at Sheerness and 
Chatham. "In the glorious days " of war with 
Prance those towns were full of life, bustle, and 

* He Avas christened Charles Jb7i?iJ3ottf77iam Dickens, 
but the full name (taken partly from the father and 
partly from his mother's side) was too high-sounding 
for his simple tastes, and so he never used it, prefer- 
ring the plainer form. He once remarked that, had 
he been a fashionable doctor, he might have thought 
differently about the matter. 



character, and the father of the author of 
" Pickwick " was at times fond of dilating 
upon the strange scenes he had witnessed. 
One of the stories described a sitting-room 
he once enjoyed at Blue Town, Sheerness, 
abutting on the theatre. Of an evening 
he used to sit in his room and could hear 
what was passing on the stage, and join in 
the chorus of "God save the King" and 
"Britannia Rules the Waves" — then the 
favorite song of Englishmen. 

On the termination of the war in 1815, 
a large reduction was made in the number 
of clerks in this office, and Mr. Dickens 
receiving his pension, removed to London 
with his wife and seven children. Pos- 
sessing considerable abilities, and unwilling to 
remain idle, he became parliamentary reporter 
on the "Morning Chronicle."* 

Charles remained at home until he was seven 
years of age, and was then sent to a private 
school at Chatham, the late Rev. Wm. Giles, 
P. R. A. S., being his instructor. As an evi- 
dence of young Dickens's kindly disposition, it 
may be mentioned that, some years ago, when 
such fame as he had acquired would cause most 
men to have forgotten their former old associa- 
tions, Dickens joined some other old scholars 
in the presentation of a service of plate to Mr. 
Giles, accompanied by a most gratifying testi- 
monial of regard, to which he attached his 
well-known bold autograph. A fellow-scholar, 
who was at school at the same time with Dick- 
ens (there being only two years difference in 
their ages), used often to speak of the marked 
geniality of Dickens's character as a boy, and 
of his proficiency in all boyish sports, such as 
cricket, etc. Ultimately he completed his edu- 
cation at a good school in or near London. 
At an early age he commenced to read the 

* The old gentleman died in Keppel Street, Russell 
Square, on 31st March, 1S51, aged 65. 



12 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



standard works of the best authors. In the 
preface to "Nicholas Nickleby," speaking of 
how he first heard of the cruelties of the York- 
shire schools, he describes himself as being "a 
not very robust child, sitting in by-places, near 
Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, 
Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza." In 
"David Copperfield " (a book one can hardly 
help fancying is in some respects autobiograph- 
ical), he says (omitting a few words) : " From 
that blessed little room Roderick Random, Per- 
egrine Pickle, Humphry Clinker, Tom Jones, 
the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, 
and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, 
to keep me company. They kept alive my fan- 
cy — they, and the 'Arabian Nights,' and the 
'Tales* of the Genii,' — and did me no harm ; 
for whatever harm there was in some of them, 
was not there for me ; / knew nothing of it. 
* * * I have seen Tom Jones (a child's Tom 
Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. 
I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Ran- 
dom for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. 
I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voy- 
ages and travels, and for days and days I can 
remember to have gone about my region of our 
house armed with a centre-piece out of an old 
set of boot-trees — the perfect realization of Cap- 
tain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in 
danger of being beset by savages, and resolved 
to sell his life at a great price. The Captain 
never lost dignity from having his ears boxed 
with the Latin Grammar. I did ; but the Cap- 
tain was a captain and a hero, in despite of all 
the grammars of all the languages in the world, 
dead or alive." 

His career at school having concluded, his 
father was desirous tliat he should be articled 
to the law, 'and he entered a solicitor's office 
for that purpose. Dunning (afterwards Lord 
Ashburton) once said : " The study of the law 
is generally ridiculed as dry and uninteresting; 
but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth 
and information will be amply gratified for the 
toil of investigating the origin and progress of 
jurisprudence which has the good of the people 
for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom of 
ages for its improvement." But to young 
Dickens it was ill calculated to accord with the 
literary tastes he had formed, and thus imbued 
with the kindred feelings of some of his distin- 
guished contemporaries — Disraeli, Layard, Har- 
rison Ainsworth, and Westland Marston, all of 
whom passed a portion of their early days at 
an attorney's desk — he became disgusted with 
the tedious routine of the profession, and, re- 
signing all ideas of propitiating Thetis (the 
goddess of lawyers), determined to become a 



reporter, like his father, who, finding how 
strong his son's ideas were on the subject, 
wisely placed no obstacle in his path, but re- 
moved him from his uncongenial employment, 
and placed him with the Messrs. Gurney, the 
parliamentary short-hand writers of Abingdon 
Street, Westminster. It is said that during his 
probation, and while practising short-hand writ- 
ing, Dickens passed the leisure hours of some 
two years in the Library of the British Mu- 
seum. 

The manner in which the difficulties of ste- 
nography were overcome had best be told in his 
own words: "I did not allow my resolution 
with respect to the parliamentary debates to 
cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat 
immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot and 
hammered at with a perseverance I may honest- 
ly admire. I bought an approved scheme of 
the noble art and mystery of stenography (which 
cost me ten-and-sixpence),* and plunged into a 
sea of perplexity, that brought me in a few 
weeks to, the confines of distraction. The 
changes that were rung upon dots, which in one 
position meant such a thing, and in another 
position something else entirely different ; the 
wonderful vagaries that were played by circles ; 
the unaccountable consequences that resulted 
from marks like fly's legs ; the tremendous ef- 
fects from a curve in the wrong place ; not only 
troubled my waking hours, but reappeared be- 
fore me in my sleep. When I had groped my 
way blindly through these difficulties, and had 
mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian 
temple in itself, there then appeared a procession 
of new horrors, called arbitrary characters — the 
most despotic characters I had ever known ; 
who insisted, for instance, that the thing like the 
beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, that 
a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvanta- 
geous. When I had fixed these wretches in my 
mind, I found that they had driven every thing 
else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot 
them ; while I was picking them up, I dropped 
the other fragments of the system ; in short, it 
was almost heart-breaking." 

Occupying the Chair at the second Anniver- 
sary of the Newspaper Press Fund, on 20th 
May, 1865, and referring to his early reporting 
days, he said : 

" I went into the gallery of the House of 
Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I 
was a boy not eighteen, and I left it — I can 
hardly believe the inexorable truth— nigh thirty 
years ago ; and I have pursued the calling of a 

* This was "Gurney's System of Short-hand," the 
IGth edition of which is now selling at the old price, 
10s. 6c?. 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



13 



reporter under circumstances of which many of 
my brethren at home in England here — many of 
my brethren's successors — can form no adequate 
conception. I have often transcribed for the 
printer from my short-hand notes important 
public speeches in which the strictest accuracy 
was required, and a mistake in which would have 
been to a young man severely compromising, 
writing on the palm of my hand by the light of 
a dark lantern in a post-chaise and four, gal- 
loping through a wild country, through the dead 
of the night, at the then surprising rate of fif- 
teen miles an hour. The very last time I was 
at Exeter I strolled into the castle-yard there to 
identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot 
on which I once ' took,' as we used to call it, 
an election speech of my noble friend Lord Rus- 
sell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by 
all the vagabonds in that division of the county, 
and under such pelting rain, that I remember 
two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be 
at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my 
note-book after the manner of a state canopy in 
an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my 
knees by writing on them on the old back row 
of the old gallery of the old House of Commons ; 
and I have worn my feet by standing to write 
in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, 
.where we used to be huddled like so many sheep 
kept in waiting till the wool-sack might want 
restufiing. Returning home from excited po- 
litical meetings in the country to the waiting 
press in London, I do verily believe I have been 
upset in almost every description of vehicle 
known in this country. I have been in my 
time belated on miry by-roads towards the small 
hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a 
rickety carriage, with exhausted horses and 
drunken post-boys, and have got back in time 
before publication, to be received with never- 
forgotten compliments by Mr. Black, in the 
broadest of Scotch, coming from the broadest of 
hearts I ever knew. I mention these trivial 
things as an assui'ance to you that I never have 
forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. 
The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity 
and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out 
of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand 
or head I took to it or acquired in it, I have so 
retained as that I fully believe I could resume 
it to-morrow. To this present year of my life, 
when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a 
dull speech — the phenomenon does occur — I 
sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by 
mentally following the speaker in the old, old 
way ; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I 
even find my hand going on the table-cloth. 
Accept these little truths as a confirmation of 



what I know, as a confirmation of my interest 
in this old calling. I verily believe, I am sure, 
that if I had never quitted my old calling, I 
should have been foremost and zealous in the 
interest of this institution, believing it to be a 
sound, a wholesome, and a good one." 

"That there was no exaggeration in this 
statement," writes a personal friend,* "he 
proved, in the course of that very year, by giv- 
ing a series of lessons in short-hand to a young 
man, a connection of his, when his fluency and 
perspicuity were found to be as great as ever." 
To the same writer he once told a curious an- 
ecdote of his reporting days : " The late Earl of 
Derby, then Lord Stanley, had on some impor- 
tant occasion made a grand speech in the House 
of Commons. This speech, of immense length, 
it was found necessary to compress, but so ad- 
mirably had its pith and marrow been given in 
the 'Morning Chronicle,' that Lord Stanley 
sent to the ofiice, requesting that the gentleman 
who had reported it would wait upon him at his 
residence in Carlton House Terrace, that he 
might then and there take down the speech in 
its entirety from his lordship's lips. Lord Stan- 
ley being desirous of having a perfect transcript 
of it. The reporter was Charles Dickens. He 
attended, took down the speech, and received 
Lord Stanley's compliments on his work. Many 
years after, Mr. Dickens, dining for the first time 
with a friend in Carlton House Terrace, found 
the aspect of the dining-room strangely familiar 
to him, and, on making inquiries, discovered 
that the house had previously belonged to Lord 
Derby, and that that was the very room in which 
he had taken down Lord Stanley's speech." It 
is understood that our author practised report- 
ing in th,e law Courts before going to the Houses 
of Parliament. 

The first paper he obtained an engagement 
on was " The True Sun," with the managers 
of which he soon became noted for the succinct- 
ness of his reports, and the judicious, though 
somewhat ruthless, style with which he cut 
down unnecessary verbiage, displaying the sub- 
stance to the best advantage, and exemplify- 
ing the well-known maxim of Perry, the fa- 
mous chief of the "Morning Chronicle," that 
" Speeches can not be made long enough for the 
speakers, nor short enough for the 7-eaders." 

Remaining for a brief period on the staff" of 
"The True Sun," he seceded to the "Mirror 
of Parliament," which had started with the ex- 
press object of reporting the debates verbatim. 
Mr. Barrow, Dickens's uncle, was the conduct- 
or ; its downfall, however, was rapid, as it only 
existed two sessions. 

* In the " Observer," l'2th June, ISTO. 



14 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



Through his father's influence he was next I 
secured an appointment on the "Morning 
Chronicle," a newspaper originally established 
on Whig principles, by Woodfall, in 1769. By 
a remarkable coincidence, three of its chief par- 
liamentary reporters afterwards attained to emi- 
nent positions. The late Lord Chancellor 
Campbell commenced his career on its staff; on 
his resignation William Hazlitt (the celebrated 
essayist) supplied his place, who was in turn 
succeeded by Mr. Charles Dickens. 

While Dickens was reporting for the " Morn- 
ing Chronicle," it fell in the way of his duty to 
go down into Devonshire, where Lord John 
Russell — who had accepted the post of Secreta- 
ry of State in the new Melbourne cabinet — was 
seeking re-election (May, 1835) from his old con- 
stituency. As his lordship had been instrument- 
al in getting Peel and the tories out of office, 
his constituents resented the act by returning 
another member in his place. It is to this noisy 
election that Dickens alludes in the extract from 
his speech on "reporting" given above. In 
those days of coaching and slow letter-post, 
Dickens had to keep his editor fully informed 
of the best and quickest transit for his "re- 
ports ;" and, by the kindness of the then sub-ed- 
itor, who received Dickens's letters, and, believ- 
ing in the man as heartily as the great John 
Black did, has carefully preserved them to the 
present time, I am enabled to give an extract 
from the identical letter received from him when 
on this journey. He writes from the Bush Inn 
at Bristol, a famous hostelry for commercial 
travellers, and a noted "coaching" house for 
persons bound to the West of England. The 
letter was dated Tuesday morning : 

" The conclusion of Russell's dinner will be 
forwarded by Cooper's, company's coach, which 
leaves here at half past six to-morrow morning. 
The report of the Bath dinner shall be forward- 
ed by the first Bath coach on Thursday morning 
— what time it starts we have no means of as- 
certaining till we reach Bath ; but you will re- 
ceive it as early as possible, as we Avill indorse 
the parcel ' Pay the porter 2s. 6c/. extra for im- 
mediate delivery.' Beard will go over to Bath 
from here to-morrow morning, and I shall come 
back by the mail from Marlborough. I need 
not say that it will be sharp work, and will re- 
quire two of us ; for we shall both be up the 
whole of the previous night, and shall have to sit 
up all night again to get it off in time. 

" As soon as we have had a little sleep, we 
shall return to town as quickly as we can, for we 
have (if the express succeeds) to stop at two or 
three places along the road, to pay money and 



I 



express satisfaction. You may imagine that 
we are extremely anxious to know the result of 
the arrangement. Pray direct to one of us at 
the ' White Hart,' Bath, and inform us in a 
parcel sent by the first coach after you receive 
this, exactly at what hour it arrived. Do not 
fail on any account. 

" We joined with the ' Herald ' (I say this in 
reference to the first part of your letter) precise- 
ly on the principle you at first laid down — econ- 
omy ; not pushed so far, however, as to inter- 
fere with the eflSciency of the express. As the 
conclusion of the dinner was to be done, we all 
thought the best plan we could pursue would be 
to leave two men behind, and trust Russell to 
the others. I have no doubt, if he makes a 
speech of any ordinary dimensions, it can be 
done by the time we reach Marlborough ; and 
taking into consideration the immense impor- 
tance of having the addition of saddle-horses 
from thence, it is beyond all doubt worth an ef- 
fort. Believe me (for self and Beard), 
" Very sincerely yours, 

" Charles Dickens. 

" *^* I thought of putting the accompanying 
letter to my brother in the post. Will you 
have the kindness to send a boy with it ?" 1 

This is, in all likelihood, the only letter of 
Dickens's reporting days now in existence. 
As a record of his industry and business fore- 
sight it is most interesting, and the glimpses 
that it gives of the wild life led by a reporter 
in those days, show us the source of that won- 
derful knowledge of those old coaching days 
and that old tavern life that have passed out of 
actual existence, to live forever in Dickens's 
pages. We may just say that it is Mr. Thomas 
Beard, one of the first reporters in England, and 
Dickens's dear friend, who is alluded to in the 
letter ; the Mr. Frank Beard, who attended the 
great novelist in his last moments, is, we be- 
lieve, a brother of this gentleman. 

Concerning Dickens's earliest printed writ- 
ings, Mr. James Grant, the well-known journal- 
ist and author, has supplied us with an account 
which differs much from what has been else- 
where said upon this part of our author's career. 
"It is everywhere stated," says Mr. Grant, 
"that the earliest productions from his pen 
made their appearance in the columns of the 
' Morning Chronicle,' and that Mr. John Black, 
then editor of that journal, was the first to dis- 
cover and duly to appreciate the genius of Mr. 
Dickens. The fact was not so. It is true that 
he wnrote ' Sketches ' afterwards in the ' Morn 
ing Chronicle,' but he did not begin them in 
that journal. Mr. Dickens first became con- 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



15 



nected with the ' Morning Chronicle ' as a re- 
porter in the gallery of the House of Commons. 
This was in 1835-36 ; but Mr. Dickens had been 
previously engaged, while in his nineteenth year, 
as a reporter for a publication entitled the ' Mir- 
ror of Parliament,' in which capacity he occupied 
the very highest rank among the eighty or ninety 
reporters for the press then in Parliament. 
While in the gallery of the House of Commons, 
he was exceedingly reserved in his manners. 
Though interchanging the usual courtesies of 
life with all with whom he came into contact in 
the discharge of his professional duties, the only 
gentleman at that time in the gallery of the 
House of Commons with whom he formed a 
close personal intimacy was Mr. Thomas Beard, 
then a reporter for the * Morning Herald, ' and 
now connected with the newspaper press gener- 
ally, as furnishing the court intelligence in the 
morning journals. The friendship thus formed 
between Mr. Dickens and Mr. Beard so far 
back as the year 1832 was, I believe, continued 
till the death of Mr, Dickens. 

"It was about the year 1833-34, before Mr. 
Dickens's connection with the ' Morning Chron- 
icle,' and before Mr. Black, then editor of that 
journal, had ever met with him, that he com- 
menced his literary career as an amateur writer. 
He made his debut in the latter end of 1834 or 
beginning of 1835, in the * Old Monthly Maga- 
zine,' then conducted by Captain Holland, an 
intimate friend of mine. The ' Old Monthly 
Magazine ' had been started more than a quar- 
ter of a century before by Sir Kichard Philips, 
and was for many years a periodical of large cir- 
culation and high literary reputation — a fact 
which might be inferred from another fact, 
namely, that the 'New Monthly Magazine,' 
started by Mr. Colburn, under the editorial 
auspices of Mr. Thomas Campbell, author of 
'The Pleasures of Hope,' appropriated the 
larger portion of its title. The ' Old Monthly 
Magazine ' was published at half a crown, being 
the same price as 'Blackwood,' 'Fraser,' and 
*Bentley's ' magazines are at the present day. 

" It was, as I have said, in this monthly pe- 
riodical — not in the columns of the ' Morning 
Chronicle ' — that Mr. Dickens first appeared in 
the realms of literature. He sent, in the first 
instance, his contributions to that periodical 
anonymously. These consisted of sketches, 
chiefly of a humorous character, and were sim- 
ply signed 'Boz,' For a long time they did 
not attract any special attention, but were gen- 
erally spoken of in newspaper notices of the 
magazine as 'clever,' 'graphic,' and so forth, 

♦' Early in ] 836 the editorship of the ' Month- 
ly Magazine ' — the adjective ' Old' having been 



by this time dropped — came into my hands; 
and in making the necessary arrangements for 
its transfer from Captain Holland — then, I 
should have mentioned, proprietor as well as 
editor — I expressed my great admiration of the 
series of ' Sketches by Boz,' which had appear- 
ed in the ^Monthly,' and said I should like to 
make an arrangement with the writer for a con- 
tinuance of them under my editorship. With 
that view I asked him the name of the author. 
It will sound strange in most ears when I state, 
that a name which has for so many years filled 
the whole civilized world v/ith its fame was not 
remembered by Captain Holland, But he add- 
ed, after expressing his regret that he could not 
at the moment recollect the real name of 'Boz,' 
that he had received a letter from him a few 
days previously, and that if I would meet him 
at the same time and place next day, he would 
bring me that letter, because it related to the 
' Sketches ' of the writer in the ' Monthly Maga- 
zine.' As Captain Holland knew I was at the 
time a parliamentary reporter on the ' Morning 
Chronicle,' then a journal of high literary repu- 
tation, and of great political influence, he sup- 
plemented his remark by saying that ' Boz ' was 
a parliamentary reporter ; on which I observed 
that I must, in that case, know him, at least by 
sight, as I was acquainted, in that respect, more 
or less, with all the reporters in the gallery of 
the House of Commons. 

" Captain Holland and I met, according to 
appointment, on the following day, when he 
brought me the letter to which he had referred. 
I then found that the name of the author of 
' Sketches by Boz ' was Charles Dickens. The 
letter was written in the most moderate terms. 
It was simply to the effect that as he (Mr. Dick- 
ens) had hitherto given all his contributions — 
those signed ' Boz ' — gratuitously, he would be 
glad if Captain Holland thought his ' Sketches ' 
to be worthy of any small remuneration, as 
otherwise he would be obliged to discontinue 
them, because he was going very soon to get 
married, and therefore would be subjected to 
more expenses than he was while living alone, 
which he was during the time, in Furnival's 
Inn, 

"It was not quite clear from Mr. Dickens's 
letter to Captain Holland, whether he meant he 
would be glad to receive any small consideration 
for the series of ' Sketches,' about a dozen in 
number, which he had furnished to the ' Month- 
ly Magazine ' without making any charge, or 
whether he only expected to be paid for those 
he might afterwards send. Neither do I know 
whether Captain Holland furnished him with 
any pecuniary expression of his admiration of 



16 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 




THE UOUbE IN FDENIVAL'8 INN (1833-36). 



[Our Author's earliest London home, after leaving his fa- 
ther's house. Here he had chambers when a reporter, and 
some time before he received any appointment as a writer 
for the press. Here the "Sketches by Boz" were written, 
and the largest portion of his best-known work, the inimi- 
table " Pickwick Papers."] 



eight guineas per sheet, which was at the 
rate of half a guinea per page. 

"I wrote to him in reply, that the 
£- price was not too much, but that I could 
not get the proprietor to give the amount, 
because when the ' Monthly Magazine ' 
came into his hands it was not in the 
same flourishing state as it once had 
been. I was myself, at this time, get- 
ting ten guineas a sheet from Captain 
Marryat for writing for his ' Metropoli- 
tan Magazine,' which was started by 
Thomas Campbell and Tom Moore, in 
opposition to the ' New Monthly Maga- 
zine,' and at the rate of tw^enty guineas 
per sheet for my contributions to the 
* Penny Cyclopedia.' 

" Only imagine,"concludes Mr. Grant, 
with pardonable fervor, "Mr. Dickens 
offering to furnish me with a continua- 
tion, for any length of time which I 
might have named, of his ' Sketches by 
Boz ' for eight guineas a sheet, whereas 
in little more than six months from that 
date he could — so great in the interval 
had his popularity become — have got 100 
guineas per sheet of sixteen pages from 
any of the leading periodicals of the 
day !"* 

Dr. Charles Mackay writes to us : 
"John Black, of the 'Morning Chron- * 



the ' Sketches by Boz ' which had appeared in 
the ' Monthly.' But immediately on receiving 
Mr. Dickens's letter, I wrote to him, saying that 
the editorship of the ' Monthly Magazine ' had 
come into my hands, and that, greatly admiring 
his ' Sketches' under the signature of 'Boz,' I 
should be glad if we could come to any arrange- 
ment for a continuance of them. I concluded 
my note by expressing a hope that he would, at 
his earliest convenience, let me know on what 
terms per sheet he would be willing to furnish 
me with similar sketches every month for an in- 
definite period. 

"By return of post I received a letter from 
Mr. Dickens, to the effect that he had just en- 
tered into an arrangement Avith Messrs. Chap- 
man & Hall to write a monthly serial. He 
did not name the work, but I found in a few 
weeks it was none other than the ' Pickwick Pa- 
pers.' He added, that as this serial would oc- 
cupy much of his spare time from his duties as 
a reporter, he could not undertake to furnish 
me with the proposed sketches for less than 



icle,' was always keen to discover young 
genius, and to help it onward in the 
struggle of life. He very early discov- 
ered the talents of Dickens — not only as 
a reporter, but as a writer." Dr. Mackay was 
sub-editor of the ' Morning Chronicle ' when 
Dickens was a reporter. He continues: "I 
have often heard Black speak of him, and pre- 
dict his future fame. When Dickens had be- 
come famous, Black exerted all his influence 
with Sir John Easthope, principal proprietor of 
the ' Chronicle,' to have Dickens engaged as a 
writer of leading articles. He (Black) had his 
wish, and Dickens wrote several articles ; but 
he did not seem to take kindly to such work, 
and did not long continue at it." 

And Mr. Gruneisen writes: "I believe I 
must add my name to the remaining list of edi- 
torial workers who became acquainted with 
Charles Dickens when he was in the Gallery. 
I hope my memory is not deceiving me when I 
claim for Vincent Dowling, once a reporter, 
and for years the respected editor of 'Bell's 
Life in London,' the credit of having been the 
first to discover the genius for sketching charac- 



" Morning Advertiser," 13th June, 1870. 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



17 



ters of Dickens. 'J. G.' may remember that 
the proprietary of the ' Morning Chronicle,' 
the 'Observer,' and 'Bell's Life' was in the 
hands, if I remember rightly, exclusively of 
Mr. Perry, and the publication of the several 
papers was at the Strand office. I have a dis- 
tinct recollection that Dr. Black's notice of 
Dickens was based on writings which had been 
in print prior to his joining the reporting staif 
of the ' Morning Chronicle.' Dr. Black was 
always very emphatic in his prognostications of 
the brilliant future of Charles Dickens. In 
1835 the famed novelist was spoken of among 
his colleagues as a man of mark. The ' Boz ' 
sketches, if not the rage of the general public, 
had attracted the attention of the literary circles 
of the day. 

" Respecting the marvellous facility of Dick- 
ens as a reporter, many versions of his note- 
taking of a speech of the late Lord Derby (when 
Lord Stanley) have been current, and I had a 
correspondence with Dickens on the subject 
only some months since, he prc^nising to give 
me the accurate record of his stenographic feat 
when he met me. This promise he fulfilled the 
last time, alas ! I ever saw him alive, at the 
anniversary dinner of the News-venders' Be- 
nevolent Institution, when he took the Chair in 
Free-masons' Hall — the last banquet at which 
he presided. It was in consequence of a re- 
porter having broken down for the ' Mirror of 
Parliament ' that the late Lord Derby, after com- 
plimenting Dickens for his report in the ' Chroni- 
cle,' dictated to him his speech — the 'Mirror,' 
as you are aware, giving in those days verbatim 
reports." 

When Charles Dickens first became acquaint- 
ed with Mr. Vincent Dowling, editor of "Bell's 
Life" — or "Sleepless Life," as he facetiously 
termed it, from its Latin heading, '''■ Nunquam 
Dormio'''' ("wide awake") — he would generally 
stop at old Tom Goodwin's oyster and refresh- 
ment rooms, opposite the office, in the Strand. 
On one occasion, Mr. Dowling, not knowing 
who had called, desired that the gentleman 
would leave his name, to be sent over to the 
office, whereupon young Dickens wrote : 



"CHARLES DICKENS, 

* ' JResurrectionist, 

" In search of a Subject." 



Some recent cases of body-snatching had then 
made the matter a general topic for public dis- 
cussion, and Goodwin pasted up the strange ad- 
dress-card for the amusement of the medical 

2 



students who patronized his oysters. It was 
still upon his wall when " Pickwick " had made 
Dickens famous, and the old man was never 
tired of pointing it out to those whom he was 
pleased to call his "bivalve demolishers!" 

We may just mention that it was Dowling 
who rushed down from the reporters' gallery 
and seized Bellingham, after his assassination 
of Spencer Perceval. 

The late Mr. Jerdan used to describe how he 
caught the Prime Minister in his arms. 



CHAPTER II. 

PUBLICATION OF THE "PICKWICK PAPERS." 

We have thought it right to give Mr. Grant's 
personal account of Dickens's early career entire, 
but it is only fair to other friends of the de- 
ceased novelist, who have favored us with par- 
'•iculars, that their recollections should find a 
place in these pages. From them we learn 
that in the year 1835 our author made his debut 
as a writer, " with the exception of certain 
tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or 
ten, and represented with great applause to 
overflowing nurseries." His first sketch, en- 
titled "Mrs. Joseph Porter," was inserted in 
the "Old Monthly Magazine." In the preface 
to the "Pickwick Papers," mention is made of 
the effect its publication had on him : 

" — My first effusion — dropped steathily one 
evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, 
into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a 
dark court in Fleet Street — appeared in all the 
glory of print ; on which occasion, by-the-by 
— how well I recollect it ! — I walked down to 
Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half 
an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with 
joy and pride that they could not bear the 
street, and were not fit to be seen there." A 
number of other papers were sent to the same 
magazine, and subsequently he contributed a 
similar series to the evening edition of the 
" Morning Chronicle." 

The pseudonym adopted was "Boz," which 
quaint signature subsequently gave rise to the 
epigram : 

"Who the dickens 'Boz' could he 
Puzzled mauy a curious elf; 
Till time uuveil'd the mystery, 
And 'Boz' appear'd as Dickens' self." 

And Tom Hood, in the character of an " un- 
educated poet," says : 

"Arn't that 'ere 'Boz' a tip-top feller! 
Lots writes well, but he writes Weller !" 

The reason for such a singular nom-de-phvie 
is thus told by the author himself: "/joc was 



18 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



the nickname of a pet child, a younger brother, 
whom I had dubbed Moses, in honor of 'The 
Vicar of Wakefield ;' which being facetiously 
pronounced through the nose, became Boses, 
and being shortened became Boz. Boz was a 
very familiar household word to me long before 
I was an author, and so I came to adopt it." 

The reception the " Sketches " met with was, 
we are assui-ed, immense ; and it has been tru- 
ly said: "They were the first of their class. 
Dickens was the first to unite the delicately- 
playful thread of Charles Lamb's street musings 
— half experiences, half bookish phantasies — 
with the vigorous wit, and humor, and observa- 
tion of Goldsmith's ' Citizen of the World,' his 
' Indigent Philosopher,' and 'Man in Black,' 
and twine tliem together in that golden cord of 
Essay, which combines literature with philoso- 
phy, humor with morality, amusement with in- 
struction." The wonderful fund of humor and 
picturesque word-painting contained in them^ 
surprises, even in these days, most persons who 
read them for the first time. They are, as 
Pope wrote : 

" From grave to gay, from lively to severe." 

The most thrilling and impressive are, undoubt- 
edly, " A Visit to Newgate " and " The Drunk- 
ard's Death," while perhaps the best comic ones 
are the celebrated " Election for Beadle," 
"Greenwich Fair," and "Miss Evans at the 
Eagle." 

In February, 1836, the first series, in two vol- 
umes, illustrated by George Cruikshank, was 
published in a collected form by Macrone, of 
St. James's Square, and in the December fol- 
lowing the second series was issued. Macrone, 
shortly afterwards, being in distressed circum- 
stances, sold the copyright to Messrs. Chapman 
and Hall for £1100. At the present day their 
popularity still remains unabated, and it is sel- 
dom, at a Penny Reading or entertainment by 
an Elocution Class, that one or more of them is 
not selected as a staple attraction in the pro- 
gramme. 

To show how persons at times may take a 
mistaken and bigoted view of things in general, 
and how apt they are to look with jaundiced 
eyes on humorous writing, we may be pardon- 
ed for mentioning that, at one of the Penny 
Readings at Stowmarket, Suffolk, some nine 
years since, on the announcement of a Mr. 
Gudgeon's intention to read " The Bloomsbury 
Christening," he received this epistle from the 
horrified rector: 

"Stowmarket Vicarage, Feb. 25, 1861. 
" Sir, — My attention has been directed to a 
piece called ' The Bloomsbury Christening,' 



which you propose to read this evening. With- 
out presuming to claim any interference in the 
arrangement of the Readings, I would suggest 
to you whether you have, on this occasion, suf- 
ficiently considered the character of the compo- 
sition you have selected. I quite appreciate the 
laudable motive of the promoters of the Read- 
ings to raise the moral 'tone and direct this taste 
in a familiar and pleasant manner. ' The 
Bloomsbury Christening' can not possibly do 
this. It trifles with a sacred ordinance, and 
the language and style, instead of improving 
the taste, has a direct tendency to lower it. - 

" I a])peal to your right feeling whether it be f 
desirable to give publicity to that which must 
shock several of your audience, and create a 
smile among others, to be indulged in only by 
violating the conscientious scruples of their 
neighbors. 

" The ordinance which is here exposed to rid- 
'icule is one which is much misunderstood and 
neglected among many families belonging to the 
Church of England, and the mode in which it 
is treated in this chapter can not fail to appear 
as giving a sanction to, or at least excusing, 
such neglect. 

"Although you are pledged to the public to 
give this subject, yet I can not but believe that 
they would fully justify your substitution of it 
by another, did they know the circumstances. 
An abridgment would only lessen the evil, as it 
is not only the style of the writing, but the sub- 
ject itself, which is objectionable. 

" Excuse me for troubling you, but I felt that, 
in common with yourself, I have a grave respon- 
sibility in the matter, and I am, 

"Most truly yours, T. S. Coles. 

" To Me. J. Gudgeon." 

It is not generally known that some time be- 
fore " Pickwick " had been thought of by either 
publisher or author, Dickens was engaged upon 
a novel, the fate of which we may now never 
know. The success of the "Sketches" was 
such — a second edition being called for immedi- 
ately after they were issued — that Macrone en- 
tered into an arrangement with "Boz" to pub- 
lish this work in the regular three-volume form. 
The title was to be " Gabriel Vardon " — and 
a new novel by the author of "Sketches by 
Boz " was at once advertised by the publisher, 
and continued to be so announced until the 
commencement of 1837, v>'hen Macrone failed in 
business, and the advertisement was withdrawn. 
Could the novel have been laid aside to appear, 
four years later, in the altered form of " Barna- 
by Rudge," in which — as the reader may re- 
member — " Gabriel Varden " (not Fa?-c/on), the 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



19 



father of Dolly, is one of the principal charac- 
ters ? 

It has been recently stated, in more than one 
journal, that " The Sketches by Boz " were not 
republished in a collective form until after the 
success of " Pickwick." T,his is a mistake. It 
was in the month following the publication of 
the "Sketches" — in March, 3836 — that the 
first number of the "Pickwick Papers " was is- 
sued, and in the following year the work was 
published in a complete form, and dedicated to 
Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, an old and attached 
friend, and one of the first to recognize Dick- 
ens's extraordinary genius. He it was that 
presided at the monthly dinner, at the conclu- 
sion of which the proof of the forthcoming num- 
ber of " Pickwick " was read by him (Talfourd). 
The guests — some half a dozen literary and 
personal friends — expressed their opinions, sug- 
gested changes, etc., which the author took 
kindly, and often availed himself of. 

His friend, the late Mr. Maclise, often told 
how that he, John Forster, and Charles Dick- 
ens used to meet at "Jack Straw's Castle," 
Hampstead Heath, and there Dickens would 
read to them that which he had written during 
the week ; and this done, the rest of the time 
would be passed in a pleasant commingling of 
good cheer and genial criticism. "But this," 
the great artist would add, " was in the good 
old days gone by, when we were all young, and 
had the world before us." 

Subsequently, in sending a complete copy of 
the work to his friend Talfourd, he took occa- 
sion to speak of his learned friend's exertions to 
secure to authors an extended term of copyright 
in their works : 

" If I had not enjoyed the happiness of your 
private friendship, I should still have dedicated 
this work to you, as a slight and most inade- 
quate acknowledgment of the inestimable serv- 
ices you are rendering to the literature of your 
country. * * * Many a fevered head and pal- 
sied hand will gather new vigor in the hour of 
sickness and distress from your excellent exer- 
tions ; many a widowed mother and orphan 
child, who would otherwise reap nothing from 
the fame of departed genius but its too frequent 
legacy of poverty and suffering, will bear, in 
their altered condition, higher testimony to the 
value of your labors than the most lavish enco- j 
miura from lip or pen could ever afford. 

"Besides such tributes, any avowal of feeling 
from me on the question to which you have de- ' 
voted the combined advantages of your elo- 
quence, character, and genius, would be power- j 
less indeed. Nevertheless, in thus publicly ex- ' 
pressing my deep and grateful sense of vour 



efforts in behalf of English literature, and of 
those who devote themselves to the most preca- 
rious of all pursuits, I do but imperfect justice 
to my own strong feelings on the subject, if I 
do no service to you." 

The entire letter was printed as an introduc- 
tion to the old, original, and large-size edition 
of "Pickwick," but it has been omitted in the 
" Charles Dickens Edition " recently issued. 

An amusing anecdote is remembered of our 
author and the learned Serjeant. At a public 
dinner, some years afterwards, Mr. Talfourd, re- 
gretting the absence of his friend Dickens, paid 
an appropriate and well-meriied compliment to 
the breadth of surface over which the life, char- 
acter, and general knowledge contained in his 
works extended. The reporter, not rightly 
hearing this, or not attending to it, but proba- 
bly saying to himself, ' ' Oh, it's about Dickens 
— one can't go wrong," gave a version of the 
learned Serjeant's speech in the next morning's 
paper, to the effect that Mr. Dickens's genius 
comprised that of all the greatest minds of the 
time put together, and that his works represent- 
ed all their works. The high ideal and imagi- 
native — the improvements in the steam-engine 
and machinery — all the new discoveries in anat- 
omy, geology, and electricity, with the prize 
cartoons, and history and philosophy thrown 
into the bargain — one had only to search from 
the "Sketches by Boz" down to "Martin 
Chuzzlewit" to find, in some shape or other — 
"properly understood" — all these, and much 
more ; in fact, every thing valuable which the 
world of letters elsewhere contains ! "We need 
hardly say that no reader of this astounding re- 
port was more amused than was Mr. Dickens 
himself, when he glanced over his newspaper on 
the following morning. 

A great deal has been said of the origin of 
Pickwick and his Club, but notwithstanding 
the accounts given by both author and artist 
are perplexingly circumstantial, the reader will 
have but little difiiculty in coming to a conclu- 
sion upon the matter. 

The artist's account, given in the introduc- 
tion to the last edition of " Seymour's Sketch- 
es," is this : " Seymour was very fond of hor- 
ticultural pursuits, and took great pains in cul- 
tivating a very nice garden which was attached 
to his house. Being rather disappointed with 
the effect of his gardening operations, it was 
suggested to him that the misfortunes of an 
amateur gardener might be made the subject of 
some humorous drawings. After revolving 
the idea in his mind for a short time, he re- 
solved upon converting it into something of a 
sporting character, and said it should be ' Pick- 



20 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



wick and his Club.' His first notion was to 
bring it out on a similar plan to that of the 
'Heiress,' which appeared in 1830, and he pro- 
posed the subject to Mr. M'Lean. This was 
in the autumn of 1835, during which Mr. 
Spooner frequently called at Seymour's house 
to ascertain the progress of the plates for the 
'Book of Christmas,' and on one of these oc- 
casions Seymour brought forward the project of 
'Pickwick,' which Spooner highly approved; 
and, in talking the matter over between them, 
it was- decided that it would be an improvement 
to add letter-press. The undertaking was so 
far put in motion that Seymour etched four 
plates from the drawings which he had made, 
and Mr. Spooner suggested that Theodore 
Hook should, if possible, be engaged for the 
letter-press. In consequence of Spooner being 
very much occupied in the production of the 
'Book of Christmas,' which, through the au- 
thor's (T. K. Hervey's) dilatoriness, came out 
a month later than it should have done, ' Pick- 
wick' lay in abeyance, and the four plates that 
were etched remained in the artist's drawer for 
about three months, so that Seymour began to 
think that if he did not soon hear from Spooner 
he would bring out the work on his own ac- 
count, and get H. Mayhew or Moncrieff to 
write for it. In February, 1836, Mr. Chap- 
man, the publisher, called on Seymour and 
asked him to make a drawing for a wood-cut, 
which Seymour undertook on the express con- 
dition that it should be engraved by a certain 
engraver whom he named. At this interview 
he mentioned the ' Pickwick ' design to Mr. 
Chapman, and showed him the plates. Chap- 
man very soon closed with his offer, proposing 
at first that it should be brought out in half- 
guinea volumes ; but Seymour, who desired the 
widest circulation, insisted on his original plan, 
for it was his own idea that it should be in 
shilling monthly numbers. The publisher then 
asked Seymour if he had engaged an author to 
do the writing, and upon receiving an answer 
in the negative, mentioned Mr. Clarke, the au- 
thor of ' Three Courses and a Dessert.' This 
writer, however, the artist objected to, for a 
private reason. Chapman then spoke of ' Boz ' 
(Mr. Dickens's pseudonym), and having in his 
hand one of the 'Pickwick' drawings, which 
was a repi'esentation of a poor author's troubles 
(afterwards converted into the ' Stroller's Tale '), 
he ended the matter by some pleasantry about 
the proverbial poverty of literary men, and ex- 
pressed a hope that he would see Mr. Dickens, 
and lay his views of the matter before him. 
Soon after an interview took place between the 
parties, and the sum of £15 per month was 



agreed on as Dickens's recompense. The art- 
ist, however, soon found, like Winkle on the 
tall horse, that it was a difficult thing to direct 
the motions of an author who had his own 
views to consult. Seymour's scheme was cer- 
tainly a form of narrative in which the princi- 
pal incidents should be of a sporting character, 
something, as Mr. Dickens describes it, ' a Nim- 
rod Club, the members of which were to go out I 
shooting, fishing, and so forth.' Whether this ' 
design involves such a pastoral simplicity, and 
restricts the range of description so much as 
Mr. Dickens seems to imply, is perhaps capable 
of being disproved. Certain it is that sketches 
to illustrate the ' Pickwick Papers ' were de- 
signed a considerable time before the letter- 
press was arranged for; and the well-known 
portrait of the founder of the club existed on 
paper at least five years prior to Mr. Chapman's 
visit to Seymour, when the artist unfolded his 
views. In the second plate of the ' Heiress ' se- 
ries, published March 1st, 1830, Mr. Pickwick 
introduces the modest girl, just arrived from 
the country, to Lady Dashfort, who exclaims, 
' And blushing too — how very amusing !' The 
figure of Pickwick was a favorite character, a 
sort of stock-piece with Seymour — just as Mr. 
Briggs and Paterfamilias were favorites of John 
Leech, or as that stout elderly gentleman, with 
well-brushed whiskers, and invariably attired 
in a buttoned-up frock-coat, is of Mr. Charles 
Keene. In Sketch 114 of ' Seymour's Sketch- 
es,' a figure very closely resembling the wejl- 
known form of Pickwick may be seen. It 
should here be stated that the original designs 
were in some degree modified, as it is certain, 
from an entry in the artist's books, that the 
first four plates were re-etched. By whatever 
combination of counsels it happened, the first 
number of 'Pickwick' came out April 1st, and 
was very successful. Mr. Dickens wrote to 
Seymour the following letter : 

" ' My dear Sir, — I had intended to write 
you to say how much gratified I feel by the 
pains you have bestowed on our mutual friend 
Mr. Pickwick, and how much the result of your 
labors has surpassed my expectations. I am 
happy to be able to congratulate you, the pub- 
lishers, and myself on the success of the under- 
taking, which appears to have been most com- 
plete. 

" 'I have now another reason for troubling 
you. It is this : I am extremely anxious about 
the "Stroller's Tale," the more especially as 
many literary friends, on whose judgment I 
place great reliance, think it will create consid- 
erable sensation. I have seen your design for 



LIFE OF CHAPvLES DICKENS. 



21 



an etching to accompany it. I think it extreme- 
ly good, but still it is not quite my idea ; and as 
I feel so very solicitous to have it as complete as 
possible, I shall feel personally obliged if you 
will make another drawing. It will give me 
great pleasure to see you, as well as the draw- 
ing, when it is completed. With this view I 
have asked Chapman and Hall to take a glass 
of grog with me on Sunday evening (the only 
night I am disengaged), when I hope you will 
be able to look in. 

" 'The alteration I want I will endeavor to 
explain. I think the woman should be young- 
er — the dismal man decidedly should, and he 
should be less miserable in appearance. To 
communicate an interest to the plate, his whole 
appearance should express more sympathy and 
solicitude; and while I represented the sick 
man as emaciated and dying, I would not make 
him too repulsive. The furniture of the room 
you have depicted admirably. I have ventured 
to make these suggestions, feeling assured that 
you will consider them in the spirit in which I 
submit them to your judgment. I shall be hap- 
py to hear from you that I may expect to see 
you on Sunday evening. Dear sir, very truly 
yours, Chaeles Dickens.' 

"In compliance with this wish, Seymour made 
a new drawing for the ' Stroller's Tale,' which he 
etched on steel, and gave it into the hands of Mr. 
Dickens on the Sunday evening appointed. This 
was the last illustration the artist did for ' Pick- 
wick.' His sad death, which took place April 
20th, 1836, is perhaps known to the reader. 

' ' The second number of the ' Pickwick Pa- 
pers ' contained the . following just eulogium : 
'Some time must elapse before the void the 
deceased gentleman has left in his profession 
can be filled up. The blank his death has oc- 
casioned in the society which his amiable na- 
ture won and his talents adorned we hardly hope 
to see supplied. We do not allude to this dis- 
tressing event in the vain hope of adding, by 
any eulogium of ours, to the respect in which 
the late Mr. Seymour's memory is held by all 
who ever knew him.' 

"Mr. Dickens adds: 'Some apology is due 
to our readers with only three plates. When 
we say they comprise Mr. Seymour's last efforts, 
and that upon one of them, in particular (the 
embellishments of the "Stroller's Tale"), he 
was engaged to a late hour of the night pre- 
ceding his death, we feel confident the excuse 
will be deemed a sufficient one.' This, how- 
ever, is incorrect. We have already said that 
this plate, which was certainly the last Sey- 
mour did for 'Pickwick,' was given to Mr, 



Dickens on the Sunday evening on which Sey-' 
mour met him at Furnival's Inn, about a fort- 
night before." 

Such is the artist's account. 

As recently as March, 1866, a letter concern- 
ing this subject appeared in the " Athenasum," 
signed " R. Seymour." This was from the son 
of the artist who drew those inimitable carica- 
tures of George IV. and his Ministry, and who, 
as we have seen, was associated with Dickens in 
the production of Pickwick. 

The following was Mr, Dickens's reply, sent 
to the editor of the " Athenaeum :" 

"Gad's Hill Place, March 2S, ISGO. 
"As the author of the 'Pickwick Papers' 
(and of one or two other books), I send you a 
few facts, and no comments, having reference 
to a letter signed 'R, Seymour,' which in your 
editorial discretion you published last week, 

" Mr. Seymour, the artist, never originated, 
suggested, or in any way had to do with, save 
as illustrator of what I devised, an incident, a 
character (except the sporting tastes of ]Mr. 
Winkle), a name, a phrase, or a word, to be 
found in the ' Pickwick Papers.' 

" I never saw Mr. Seymour's handwriting, I 
believe, in my life. 

" I never even saw Mr. Seymour but once in 
my life, and that was within eight-and-forty 
hours of his untimely death. Two persons, 
both still living, were present on that short oc- 
casion. 

" Mr. Seymour died when only the first twen- 
ty-four printed pages of the ' Pickwick Papers ' 
were published ; I think before the next thi-ee 
or four pages were completely written ; I am 
sure before one subsequent line of the book was 
invented. 

"In the Preface to the cheap edition of the 
' Pickwick Papers,' published in October, 1847, 
I thus described the origin of that work: 'I 
was a young man of three-and-twenty when the 
present publishers, attracted by some pieces I 
was at that time writing in the " Morning 
Chronicle" newspaper (of which one series had 
lately been collected and published in two vol- 
umes, illustrated by my esteemed friend Mr. 
George Cruikshank), waited upon me to propose 
a something that should be published in shilling 
numbers — then only known to me, or, I believe, 
to any body else, by a dim recollection of cer- 
tain interminable novels in that form, which 
used, some five-and-twenty years ago, to be car- 
ried about the country by peddlers, and over 
some of which I remember to have shed in- 
numerable tears before I served my apprentice- 
ship to Life, * * * The idea propounded to me 



22 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



was that the monthly something should be a 
vehicle for certain plates, to be executed by Mr. 
Seymour ; and there was a notion, either on the 
part of that admirable humorous artist, or of my 
visitor (I forgot which), that a " Nimrod Club," 
the members of which were to go out shooting, 
fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into 
difficulties through their want of dexterity, would 
be the best means of introducing these. I ob- 
jected, on consideration that, although born and 
partly bred in the country, I was no gi'eat 
sportsman, except in regard of all kinds of lo- 
comotion ; that the idea was not novel, and had 
been already much used ; that it would be infi- 
nitely better for the plates to arise naturally out 
of the text ; and that I should like to take my own 
way, with a freer range of English scenes and 
people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so 
in any case, whatever course I might prescribe 
to myself at starting. My views being deferred 
to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the 
first number ; from the proof-sheets of which 
Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club, and 
that happy portrait of its founder, by which he 
is always recognized, and which may be said to 
have made him a reality. I connected Mr. 
Pickwick with a club because of the original 
suggestion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly 
for the use of Mr. Seymour. We started with 
a number of twenty-four pages instead of thirty- 
two, and four illustrations in lieu of a couple. 
Mr. Seymour's sudden and lamented death be- 
fore the second number was published brought 
about a quick decision upon a point already in 
agitation ; the number became one of thirty- 
two pages with two illustrations, and remained 
so to the end.' 

"In July, 1849, some incoherent assertions 
made by the widow of jNIr. Seymour, in the 
course of certain endeavors of hers to raise 
money, induced me to address a letter to Mr. 
Edward Chapman, then the only surviving busi- 
ness partner in the original firm of Chapman 
& Hall, who first published the ' Pickwick 
Papers,' requesting him to inform me in writ- 
ing whether the foregoing statement was cor- 
rect. 

" In Mr. Chapman's confirmatory answer, 
immediately written, he reminded me that I had 
given Mr. Seymour more credit than was his 
due. 'As this letter is to be historical,' he wrote, 
' I may as well claim what little belongs to me 
in the matter, and that is, the figure of Pick- 
wick. Seymour's first sketch' (made from the 
proof of my first chapter) ' M'as for a long thin 
man. The present immortal one he made from 
my description of a friend of mine at Rich- 
mond.' " 



CHAPTER III. 

POPULARITY OF THE *' PICKWICK PAPERS." 

Mr. James Grant's account of Dickens's 
earliest writings we have already given. The 
same gentleman has favored us with some per- 
sonal recollections of the fortune which attend- 
ed the first publication of " Pickwick :" 

"In connection with the rapidity of Mr. 
Dickens's rise, and the heights to which he soar- 
ed in the regions of literature, I may mention a 
few facts which have not before found their way 
into print. The terms on which he concluded 
an arrangement with Messrs. Chapman & Hall 
for the publication of the 'Pickwick Papers' 
were fifteen guineas for each number, the num- 
ber consisting of two sheets, or thirty-two pages. 
That was a rather smaller sum than that at 
which he offered, just at the same time, to con- 
tribute to the 'Monthly Magazine,' then under 
my editorship. 

"For the first five months of its existence 
Mr. Dickens's first serial, the ' Pickwick Papers,' 
was a signal failure, and notwithstanding the 
fact that Mr. Charles Tilt, at that time a pub- 
lisher of considerable eminence, made extraor- 
dinary exertions, out of friendship for Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall, to insure its success. lie sent 
out, on what is called sale or return, to all parts 
of the provinces, no fewer than fifteen hundred 
copies of each of the first five numbers. This 
gave the ' Pickwick Papers ' a very extensive 
publicity, yet Mr. Tilt's only result was an av- 
erage sale of about fifty copies of each of the five 
parts. A certain number of copies sold, of 
course, through other channels, but commercial- 
ly the publication was a decided failure. Two 
months before this Mr. Seymour, the artist, died 
suddenly, but left sketches for two parts more, 
and the question was then debated by the pub- 
lishers whether they ought not to discontinue 
the publication of the serial. But just while 
the matter was under their consideration, Sam 
Weller, who had been introduced in the previous 
number, began to attract great attention, and to 
call forth much admiration. The press was all 
but unanimous in praising ' Samivel ' as an en- 
tirely original character, whom none but a great 
genius could have created ; and all of a sudden, 
in consequence of ' Samivel's ' popularity, the 
'Pickwick Papers ' rose to an unheard-of popu- 
larity. The back numbers of the work were 
ordered to a large extent, and of course all idea 
of discontinuing it was abandoned. 

"No one can read these interesting incidents 
without being struck with the fact that the fu-- 
ture literary career of Mr, Dickens should have 
been for a brief season placed in circumstances 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



23 



of so much risk of proving a failure ; for there 
can be no doubt that, had the publication of his 
serial been discontinued at this particular peri- 
od, there was little or no probability that other 
publishers would have undertaken the risk of 
any other literary venture of his. And he 
might consequently have lived and died, great 
as his gifts and genius were, without being 
known in the world of literature. How true it 
is that there is a tide in the affairs of men ! 

"By the time the 'Pickwick Papers' had 
reached their twelfth number, that being half 
of the numbers of which it was originally in- 
tended the work should consist, Messrs. Chap- 
man & Hall were so gratified with the signal 
success to which it had now attained, that they 
sent Mr. Dickens a check for £500, as a practi- 
cal expression of their satisfaction with the sale. 
The work continued steadily to increase in cir- 
culation until its completion, when the sale had 
all but reached 40,000 copies. In the interval 
between the twelfth and concluding number, 
Messrs. Chapman & Hall sent Mr. Dickens sev- 
eral checks, amounting in all to £3000, in ad- 
dition to the fifteen guineas per number which 
they had engaged at the beginning to give him. 
It was understood at the time that Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall made a clear profit of nearly 
£20,000 by the sale of the 'Pickwick Papers,' 
after paying Mr. Dickens in round numbers 
£3500. 

"Probably," concludes Mr. Grant, "there 
are few instances on record in the annals of 
literature in which an author rose so rapidly to 
popularity and attained so great a height in it 
as ]\Ir. Dickens. His popularity was all the 
more remarkable because it was reached while 
yet a mere youth. He was incomparably the 
most popular author of his day before he had 
f.ttained his twenty-sixth year ; and what is 
even more extraordinary still, he retained the 
distinction of being the most brilliant author 
of the age until the very hour of his death — a 
period of no less than thirty-five years." 

Since the illustrious author's decease even 
the book-binders who had the charge of "Pick- 
wick " have been claiming the honor of stitch- 
ing the sheets together, and giving their recol- 
lections to the newspapers. It having been 
stated in the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper 
that "it was a question between Messrs. Chap- 
man and Hall and their binder, Mr. Bone," 
"whether a greater or less number than seven 
hundred copies should be stitched in wrappers ; 
instead of hundreds, it soon became necessary 
to provide for the sale of thousands ; and the 
green covers of ' Pickwick ' were seen all over 
the country," a Mr. Joseph Aked, of Green 



Street, Leicester Square, on the following day 
sent this correction to the same journal : 

" SiE, — In your sketch of the Life and Death 
of Mr. Charles Dickens, in yesterday's ' Tele- 
graph,' you state that the first order given to 
the binder for Part I. of the ' Pickwick ' was 
seven hundred copies, and it was a question be- 
tween Messrs, Chapman & Hall, and Mr. Bone, 
the binder, whether a greater or less number than 
seven hundred should be stitched in wrapper. 

" The first order for Part I. of the ' Pickwick ' 
was for four hundred copies only, and the or- 
der was given to myself to execute (not to Mr. 
Bone) by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, the publish- 
ers, who in those days did not consult the bind- 
er about the number of copies they would re- 
quire. Also the first number, stitched and put 
in the green cover, was done by myself, my 
, work-people having left off work for the day. 

"Before the completion of the work the sale 
amounted to nearly 40,000, the orders being 
given to myself and to Mr. Bone." 

Readers of "Pickwick" found the style so 
fresh and novel, so totally unlike the forced fun 
and unreal laughter of the other light reading 
of their time, that the smallest scrap from any 
portion of the work was deemed worthy of fre- 
quent quotation — a gem in itself. We have 
seen a little book — now very rare, and not to 
be found in the British Museum — of which 
thousands and thousands of copies must have 
been sold by Mr. Park, of Long Lane, and ]Mr. 
Catnach, of S'even Dials, bearing the title of 
"Beauties of Pickwick." 

The famed Pickwick cigar — the "Penny 
Pickwick " of our childhood — is too well known 
to need any comment. It was a "brand" orig- 
inally made by a manufacturer in Leman Street, 
Minories, and sold in boxes and papers decora- 
ted with Mr. Pickwick, hat off, bowing to you 
in the politest manner, and offering for your 
notice a long scroll, setting forth the excel- 
lence of the cigar — a small cheroot, and con- 
taining about one-half of the tobacco used in a 
cigar of this kind sold at 2c?. At the present 
day "Pickwicks" are patronized almost entire- 
ly by cab-drivers. 

Then there Avere "Pickwick " hats, with nar- 
row brims curved up at the sides, as in the fig- 
ure of the immortal possessor of that name ; 
"Pickwick" canes, with tassels; and "Pick- 
wick" coats, with brass and horn buttons, and 
the cloth invariably dark green or dark plum. 
The name "Pickwick" is said to have been 
taken from the hamlet or cluster of houses 
which formed the last resting-stage for coaches 



24 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



going to Bath,* which town, it will be remem- 
bered, was the scene of Sam Weller's chaffing 
of "Blazes," the red-breeched footman. 

But to return to the work as a literary com- 
position. " The Pickwick Papers " stand alone 
from all Dickens's works. Like " Robinson 
Crusoe," "Tom Jones," "Gulliver," "Rab- 
elais," "Tristram Shandy," "The Vicar of 
Wakefield," and half a score more, it will nev- 
er die out or be forgotten. It is crammed with 
rollicking fun and drollery. You may read it 
fifty times and never tire of it. Open it at 
whatever page you will, the charm is such that 
one can not put it down without feeling thor- 
oughly amused and delighted. We may re- 
mark that the well-known song, "The Ivy 
Green," which William Henry Russell used to 
sing with such eclat five-and-twenty years since, 
first appeared in "Pickwick." It is the only 
poetry contained in any of Dickens's novels. 
Judging from its merits, the author would 
doubtlessly have taken a very fair stand as a 
poet. In " Shy Neighborhoods " ("Uncom- 
mercial Traveller "), speaking of walking one 
night half-asleep, dozing heavily, and slumber- 
ing continually, he observes, "I made immense 
quantities of verses on that pedestrian occasion 
(of course I never make any when I am in my 
right senses)." 

Concerning the inimitaJble "Pickwick," 
" Blackwood," many years since, in an article 
entitled "A Remonstrance with Dickens," thus 
bears testimony : "As to what the best bits are, 
only he who brings a virgin palate is, perhaps, 
qualified to discriminate, of so rich materials is 
the whole compounded ; and to this day we are 
lost in admiration of the wealth of humor which 
could go on, page after page, chapter after chap- 
ter, month after month, to the close of a long 
work, pouring forth, from a source seemingly 
inexhaustible, fun, and incident, and descrip- 
tion, and character, ever fresh, vivid, and new, 
which, if distributed with a thrifty hand, would 
have served to relieve and enliven, perhaps im- 
mortalize, twenty sober romances. The very 
plan of the work (if plan it can be called where 
plan seems none) evinces the writer's extraor- 
dinary confidence in his resources, where a knot 
of individuals, connected with the loosest tie, 
and interesting only from their unconscious 



* "PiOKwicK (97 m.). — A degree of importance is 
attached to this small place, from its contiguity to 
Corsham House (1 m.), the celebrated seat of Paul 
Cobb Methuen, Esq., whose superb collection of paint- 
ings are the theme and admiration of every visitor. 
On the right of Pickwick stands Hartham Park, the 

seat of Jay, Esq., and Pickwick Lodge, belonging 

to Caleb Dickenson, Esq." — "Walks through Bath." 
By PiEECE Egan, 1819. 



drollery, are cast loose upon the world to wan- 
der through scenes of every-day life, in which, 
though constantly getting more absurd and weak, 
they yet gain a firm hold on the reader's affec- 
tion ; so that at length we take leave of Mr. 
Pickwick, in his rural retirement at Dulwich, 
with a lingering fondness, such as we have never 
felt for any of those young and handsome mira- 
cles of sense and spirit upon whose heroic ca- 
reer the vicissitudes of three thrilling volumes 
are suspended. * * * But so much geniality of 
all kinds- is displayed in the book, that probably 
no appreciative reader ever rose from its perusal 
without a strong feeling of personal regard for 
the author — an element generally omitted in the 
estimate of a writer's genius, to which we al- 
ways attach great importance." 

A writer, whose name we have forgotten, re- 
marked that " Pickwick " was made up of " two 
pounds of Smollett, three ounces of Sterne, a 
handful of Hook, a dash of the grammatical 
Pierce Egan — incidents at pleasure, served with 
an oriijinal sauce piquante." And Lady Chat- 
terton, in one of her works, remarked : " Mr. 
Davy, who accompanied Colonel Chesney up 
the Euphrates, has recently been in the service 
of Mohammed All Pacha. * Pickwick ' happen- 
ing to reach Davy while he was at Damascus, 
he read a part of it to the Pacha, who was so de- 
lighted with it, that Davy was on one occasion 
summoned to him in the middle of the night, 
to finish the reading of some part in which they 
had been interrupted. Mr. Davy read in Egypt, 
upon another occasion, some passages from these 
unrivalled papers to a blind Englishman, who 
was in such ecstasy with what he had heard, 
that he exclaimed he was almost thankful he 
could not see he was in a foreign countr\% for 
that, while he listened, be felt completely as 
though he were again in England." 

" Pickwick " was attacked in the " Quarterly 
Review," which declared that "indications are 
not wanting that the peculiar vein of humor 
which has hitherto yielded such attractive 
metal is worn out ;" but the rancorous article 
did not change public opinion, and the work 
continued just as popular as ever. 

James Smith (one of the authors of "The 
Rejected Addresses "), according to the " Law 
Magazine," one day made the bold assertion 
that he clearly preceded Mr. Dickens in the 
line which first acquired "The Pickwick Pa- 
pers " their popularity. 

Sydney Smith had two tests for the goodness 
of a noA'el : " Does it make you deaf to the din- 
ner-bell ? 

" While reading it, do you forget to answer, 
even if a bishop should speak to you ?" 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



25 



MoncriefF, the famous author of " Tom and 
Jerry," and a hundred farces and light come- 
dies, dramatized "Pickwick" long before it 
was finished, for the Strand Theatre, where it 
was performed under the title of " SamWeller ; 
or, The Pickwickians ;" Mr. W, J. Hammond 
sustaining the character of Sam Weller. The 
termination of the drama was very different to 
that given in the book itself, as will be readily 
seen. The adapter caused Mrs. Bardell to be 
tried and found guilty of attempted bigamy, her 
husband being Alfred Jingle. Messrs. Dodson 
& Fogg, the Freeman Court sharks, were sent 
t.0 Newgate for conspiracy, and only released 
upon payment of the sum of £300 or there- 
abouts, which Mr. Pickwick, on receiving, very 
generously handed to Jingle to start afresh in 
the world — the curtain falling with a herald en- 
tering and announcing the accession of Queen 
Victoria, which occurred about this time ! 

Another version was acted, with indifferent 
success, at the Adelphi, Yates representing Mr. 
Pickwick, and John Reeve Sam Weller. In 
February, 1838, Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds started 
a monthly "Pickwick Abroad; or, A Tour in 
France," illustrated by Alfred Crowquill. As 
a curiosity, it deserves to be read, if only to see 
the immense difference existing between the 
two books. 

CHAPTER 'IV. 

DICKENS AS A DRAMATIST. "OLIVER TWIST," 

It was in the year 1 836 that Mr. Thackeray, 
according to an anecdote related by himself, of- 
fered Mr. Dickens to undertake the task of il- 
lustrating one of his works. The story was told 
by the former at an anniversary dinner of the 
Royal Academy a few years since, Mr. Dickens 
being present on the occasion. " I can remem- 
ber (said Mr. Thackeray) when Mr. Dickens 
was a very young man, and had commenced de- 
lighting the world with some charming humor- 
ous works in covers which were colored light 
green, and came out once a month, that this 
young man wanted an artist to illustrate his 
writings; and I recollect walking up to his 
chambers in Furnival's Inn, with two or three 
drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he 
did not find suitable. But for the unfortunate 
blight which came over my artistical existence, 
it would have been my pride and my pleasure 
to have endeavored one day to find a place on 
these walls for one of my performances." The 
work referred to was the "Pickwick Papers." 
Seymoui*, the illustrator, having destroyed him- 
self in a fit of derangement, a new artist was 



wanted, and the result was the singular inter- 
view between the two men whose names, though 
representing schools of fiction so widely differ- 
ent, were destined to become constantly associ- 
ated in the public mind. 

A leading article in a morning newspaper on 
the occasion of Mr. Thackeray's death, in telling 
the anecdote of his attempt to illustrate " Pick- 
wick," adds that, disappointed at the rejection 
of his offer, he exclaimed, "Well, if you will 
not let me draw, I will write ;" and from that 
hour determined to compete with his illustrious 
brother novelist for public favor. Nothing could 
be more opposed to the facts than this colored 
version of the anecdote. It was not for a year 
or two after the event referred to that he began 
seriously to devote himself to literary labor; 
and his articles, published anonymously, and 
only now for the first time brought into notice, 
because recognized from their noins-de-plume to 
have been written by him, contain the best evi- 
dences that he felt no shadow of ill-will for a 
rejection which he always good-humoredly al- 
luded to as "Mr. Pickwick's lucky escape !"* 

The artists eventually engaged to take Sey- 
mour's place were, first Mr. Buss, and then Mr. 
Hablot Knight Browne, who had, in wood-cut, 
illustrated a small pamphlet by Mr. Charles 
Dickens, now out of print and extremely scarce, 
on the subject of the Sabbath in London, and 
bearing the title of " Sunday under three 
Heads." As is well known, the same artist, 
under the quaint signature of "Phiz," appar- 
ently intended to match the author's own nom- 
de-plume^ " Boz," continued to etch the plates 
for Mr. Dickens's monthly numbers for many 
years afterwards. Poor Tom Hood used to 
stumble at the name : "Fizz, Whizz, or some- 
thing of that sort," he would say. 

During the publication of " The Pickwick 
Papers" St. James's Theatre was opened, Sep- 
tember 29th, 1836, with a burletta entitled 
" The Strange Gentleman," written by " Boz ;" 
Pritt Harley acted the Strange Gentleman ; and 
"Boz," himself, on one occasion took a part. 
The piece ran until December, when it was 
withdrawn for an operatic burletta, "The Vil- 
lage Coquettes," by the same author, the music 
by John Hullah. The parts were sustained by 
Messrs. Harley (as Martin Stokes), Braham (as 
Squire Norton), Bennett (as George Edmunds), 
and John Pariy ; Mesdames Smith, Rainsforth 
(as Lucy Benson), and others. It met with a 
marked reception ; and Braham, for a long time 
after, at different concerts, sang "The Child 
and the Old Man sat alone," invariably getting 

* Theodore Taylor's "Life of Thackeray," p. 63. 



26 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



encored most enthusiastically. Three other 
songs in the burletta were great favorites, viz., 
" Love is not a Feeling to pass away," "Au- 
tumn Leaves," and "There's a Charm in 
Spring." The book of the words was published 
by Mr. Bentley, and dedicated to J. Pritt Har- 
ley in the following terms : 

" My dramatic bantlings are no sooner born 
than you father them. You have made my 
Strange Gentleman exclusively your own ; you 
have adopted Martin Stokes with equal readi- 
ness." 

The author, "Boz," excuses himself for ap- 
pearing before the public as the composer of an 
operatic burletta in the following words : 

" ' Either the Honorable Gentleman is in the 
right, or he is not,' is a phrase in very common 
use within the walls of Parliament. This dra- 
ma may have a plot, or it may not ; and the 
songs may be poetr}', or they may not; and 
the whole affair, from beginning to end, may be 
great nonsense, or it may not ; just as the hon- 
orable gentleman or lady who reads it may hap- 
pen to think. So, retaining his own private 
and particular opinion upon the subject (an 
opinion which he formed upwards of a year ago, 
when he wrote the piece), the author leaves ev- 
ery gentleman or lady to form his or hers, as he 
or she may think proper, witliout saying one 
word to influence or conciliate them. 

"All he wishes to say is this — that he hopes 
Mr. Braliam, and all the performers who assist- 
ed in the representation of this Opera, will ac- 
cept his warmest thanks for the interest they 
evinced in it from its very first rehearsal, and 
for their zealous efforts in his behalf — efforts 
which have crowned it with a degree of success 
far exceeding his most sanguine anticipations, 
and of which no form of words could speak his 
acknowledgment. 

"It is needless to add, that the libretto of an 
Opera must be, to a certain extent, a mere ve- 
hicle for the music ; and that it is scarcely fair 
or reasonable to judge it by those strict rules of 
criticism which would be justly applicable to a 
five-act tragedy or a finished comedy." 

About this time (in 1837, we believe) Mr. 
Dickens married Miss Catherine Hogarth, a 
daughter of Mr. George Hogarth, musical and 
dramatic critic of the "Morning Chronicle," 
author of "Memoirs of the Musical Drama," 
and formerly a writer to the " Signet " in Scot- 
land. Dickens now left his old chambers in 
Furnival's Inn, and took the house. No. 48 
Doughty Street, Mecklenburg Square. Soon 
after he was installed editor of " Bentley's Mis- 
cellany," and he began therein " Oliver Twist," 
subsequently published in a com.plete form by 




NO. 4S DOUGHTY ST., MEOKLENBUEG SQUARE 

(1837-'40). 

[When Mr. Dickens got married, he removed from] 
Furnivars lun to this house. Here were written the 
coucludiug numbers of "Pickwick," "Oliver Twist,' 
and "Nicholas Nickleby."]. 

Mr. Bentley in November, 1838, illustrated by 
some of the finest etchings that ever sprang 
from the magic needle of George Cruikshank. 
Any criticism upon tlie work at this time is at 
least needless, if not impertinent ; but we may 
be forgiven in saying that the work abounds in 
touches of surpassing pathos, picturesque de- 
scription, and dramatic effect, while the som- 
bre parts are relieved by a rich vein of irresist- 
ible humor. The death of Bill Sykes, after 
the barbarous murder of poor Nancy, is one of 
the most thrilling and effective chapters in the 
book. Bumble the Beadle has attained a 
world-w^ide reputation. The scene of his court- 
ship with Mrs. Corney — first prudently ascer- 
taining the value of the spoons, etc. — is perhaps 
the best "bit" of all. 

In proof of Dickens's accuracy in all matters 
of detail, an eminent medical authority assures 
us that his description of hectic, given in " Ol- 
iver Twist," has found its way into more than 
one standard English work,* in both medicine 



* Miller's "Principles of Surgery," second edition, 
p. 46; also Dr. Aitkin's "Practice of Medicine," third 
edition, vol. i. p. 111. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



27 



and surgery, also into several American and 
French books of medicine. 

Tlie preface to '"The Charles Dickens Edi- 
tion " (1867) speaks of Alderman Laurie hav- 
ing called in question the existence of such a 
place as Jacob's Island, and declares that even 
then, in 1867, it may be seen in almost the 
same squalid and filthy state as it was when first 
described. "Oliver Twist" was directed with 
great effect against the Poor-law and work- 
house system. It will be remembered by many 
that a great outcry was raised at the time of 
its original publication, and statements respect- 
ing its " gross untruth " and " distorted facts " 
were freely made. Can any one, reading the 
shocking and disgraceful disclosures made du- 
ring the last three or four years, still maintain 
that erroneous opinion ? 

A meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, on 
3d March, 1866, to promote the establishment 
of an Association for the Improvement of the 
Infirmg^-ies of the London Work-houses. Mr. 
Ernest Hart, the Secretary, had invited Dick- 
ens to attend the meeting and take part in the 
proceedings. In his reply, the author of " Ol- 
iver Twist " said : 

"An annual engagement which I can not 
possibly forego will prevent my attending next 
Saturday's meeting, and (consequently) my sec- 
onding the resolution proposed to be intrusted 
to me for that purpose. My knowledge of the 
general condition of sick poor in work-houses is 
not of yesterday, nor are my efforts in my vo- 
cation to call merciful attention to it. Few 
anomalies in England are so horrible to me as 
the unchecked existence of many shameful 
sick-wards for paupers side by side with the 
constantly increasing expansion of conventional 
wonder that the poor should creep into corners 
and die rather than fester and rot in those in- 
famous places. 

"You know what they are, and have man- 
fully told what they are, to the awakening at 
last, it would seem, of rather more than the 
seven distinguished sleepers. If any subscrip- 
tions should be opened to advance the objects 
of our association, do me the kindness to set me 
down for £20." 

Mr. Sheldon M'Kenzie, in the American 
"Round Table," relates this anecdote of " Ol- 
iver Twist :" 

" In London I was intimate -with the broth- 
ers Cruikshank, Robert and George, but more 
particularly with the latter. Having called 
upon him one day at his house (it then was in 
Mydleton Terrace, Pentonville), I had to wait 
while he was finishing an etching, for which a 
printer's boy was waiting. To while away the 



time, I gladly complied with his suggestion that 
I should look over a port-folio crowded with 
etchings, proofs, and drawings, which lay upon 
the sofa. , Among these, carelessly tied togeth- 
er in a wrap of brown paper, Avas a series of 
some twenty-five or thirty drawings, very care- 
fully finished, through most of which were car- 
ried the well-known portraits of Fagin, Bill 
Sykes and his dog, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, 
and Master Charles Bates — all well known to 
the readers of ' Oliver Twist.' There was no 
mistake about it ; and when Cruikshank turned 
round, his work finished, I said as much. He 
told me that it had long been in his mind to 
show the life of a London thief bv a series of 
drawings engraved by himself, in which, with- 
out a single line of letter-press, the story would 
be strikingly and clearly told. 'Dickens,' he 
continued, ' dropped in here one day, just as 
you have done, and, while waiting until I could 
speak with him, took up that identical port- 
folio, and ferreted out that bundle of drawings. 
When he came to that one which represents 
Fagin in the condemned cell, he studied it for 
half an hour, and told me that he was tempted 
to change the whole plot of his story ; not to 
carry Oliver Twist through adventures in the 
country, but to take him up into the thieves' 
den in London, show what their life was, and 
bring Oliver through it without sin or shame. 
I consented to let him write up to as many of 
the designs as . he thought would suit his pur- 
pose ; and that was the way in which Fagin, 
Sykes, and Nancy were created. My draw- 
ings suggested them, rather than individuality 
suggesting my drawings.' " 

How the remarkable figure of Fagin was first 
conceived Mr. Hodder tells ns. The reader 
will remember the picture of the Jew malefac- 
tor in the condemned cell, biting his nails in 
the torture of remorse. Cruikshank had been 
laboring at the subject for several days, and 
thought the task hopeless, when, sitting up in 
his bed one morning, with his hand on his chin 
and his fingers in his mouth, the whole atti- 
tude expressive of despair, he saw his face in 
the cheval glass. 

" That's it !" he exclaimed, " that's the ex- 
pression I want !" and he soon finished the pic- 
ture. 

Thackeray, in "The Newcomes," remarked 
that " a profane work, called ' Oliver Twist,' 
having appeared, which George read out to his 
family with admirable emphasis, it is a fact 
that Lady Walham became so interested in the 
parish-boy's progress, that she took his history 
into her bedroom (where it was discovered, 
under Blatherwick's ' Voice from Mesopota- 



28 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



mia,' by her ladyship's maid) ; and that Kew 
laughed so immensely at Mr. Bumble, the 
Beadle, as to endanger the reopening of his 
wound." 

And again, in "Eraser's Magazine " for Feb- 
ruary, 1840, at the end of a clever satire upon 
the Newgate Calendar school of romance, pur- 
porting 'to be written by Ikey Solomons, Jun., 
Thackeray thus remarks upon " Oliver Twist :" 
" No man has read that remarkable tale with- 
out being interested in poor Nancy and her 
murderer, and especially amused and tickled by 
the gambols of the skillful Dodger and his com- 
panions. The power of the writer is so amaz- 
ing, that the reader at once becomes his cap- 
tive, and must follow him whithersoever he 
leads : and to what are we led ? Breathless to 
watch all the crimes of Fagin, tenderly to de- 
plore the errors of Nancy, to have for Bill 
Sykes a kind of pity and admiration, and an 
absolute love for the society of the Dodger. All 
these heroes stepped from the novel on to the 
stage ; and the whole London public, from peers 
to chimney-sweeps, were interested about a set 
of ruffians whose occupations are thievery, mur- 
der, and prostitution. A most agreeable set of 
rascals, indeed, who have their virtues, too, 
but not good company for any man. We had 
better pass them by in decent silence; for, as 
no writer can or dare tell the whole truth con- 
cerning them, and faithfully explain their vices, 
there is no need to give ex parte statements of 
their virtues. * * * The pathos of the work- 
house scenes in ' Oliver Twist,' of the Fleet 
Prison descriptions in 'Pickwick,' is genuine 
and pure — as much of this as you please ; as 
tender a hand to the poor, as kindly a word to 
the unhappy as you will, but in the name of 
common sense let us not expend our sympa- 
thies on cut-throats and other such prodigies of 
evil!" 

Albert Smith, in his "Adventures of Mr. 
Ledbury," observed that, "in the year 1840, 
he found an Italian translator of the book had 
placarded the name of the poor parish orphan 
of England against the walls of the Ducal Pal- 
ace of Venice !" 

In May, 1838, an adaptation of the story 
was produced at the Pavilion Theatre, and at 
the Surrey on November 19th following, and 
met with great success. The representations of 
"Oliver Twist" and " Jack Sheppard," being 
considered as entailing great mischief, were ac- 
cordingly prohibited ; but Mr. John Oxenford's 
version (specially licensed), in three acts, was 
produced at the New Queen's Theatre, in April, 
1868, and attracted large audiences, Mr. J. L. 
Toole playing the Artful Dodger, and JSIiss 



Nelly Moore, Nancy. It was this version that 
became the subject of a Parliamentary discus- 
sion : 

Dr. Brady asked the Secretary of State 
whether the Lord Chamberlain had refused to 
license a play dramatized by Mr. Oxenford 
from Mr. Dickens's celebrated work of " Oliver 
Twist ;" and whether all plays from the same 
work were interdicted in London as being of- 
fensive to parish beadles ; and whether he ap- 
proved of the Lord Chamberlain's consideration 
for the feelings of the parish authorities. 

Mr. Hardy : The parish beadles have not the 
influence with the Lord Chamberlain which the 
hon. member supposes. Formerly, " Oliver 
Twist " and " Jack Sheppard " were prohibited, 
but Mr. Oxenford's play has been licensed by 
the Lord Chamberlain. 

Representations also took place at the Sur- 
rey, Victoria, Pavilion, and other theatres. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE COPYmCIIT OF " OLIVER TWIST.'' 

Here we come to a matter connected with 
the transfer of the copyright of " Oliver Twist " 
back into Mr. Dickens's own possession, which, 
many years later, occasioned a controversy in 
the public papers. Mr. Jerdan, the once fa- 
mous editor of the "Literary Gazette," in his 
rambling autobiography, published in 1853, 
mentions (vol. iv.) that — " Bulwer, I believe, 
paid Mr. Bentley £750 to recover a small por- 
tion of copyright which he wished, in order to 
possess an entire property in his work ; and, 
nearly at the same time, Mr. Dickens took a like 
step to repurchase a share of the copyright of 
' Oliver Twist,' after it had launched " Bentley's 
Miscellany " prosperously on the popular tide, 
and gone through two or three profitable edi- 
tions. The compensation was referred to Mr. 
John Forster and myself, and upon my table 
the sum of £2250 was handed over to Mr. Bent- 
ley, and both parties perfectly satisfied. But 
was not ' the trade ' fortunate in so easily add- 
ing to handsome preceding emoluments, the to- 
tal of no less than £3000?" 

Mr. Bentley, in a letter to " The Critic " 
(now defunct, which had reviewed the book, and 
quoted the above paragraph), replied : 

"Mr. Jerdan's Autobiography. 
"Sir, — In your last number, while review- 
ing the concluding volume of Mr. Jerdan's Au- 
tobiography, you quote a statement made by him 
relative to two transactions — one with Sir Ed- 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



29 



ward Bulwer Lytton, and the other with Mr. 
Charles Dickens and myself — which, if left un- 
contradicted, is calculated to be injurious to me. 
This statement, I distinctly assert, is grossly in- 
correct ; and I have thought it necessary to call 
upon Mr. Jerdan to cancel it altogether. 

"I greatly regret, for Mr. Jerdan's sake, as 
well as the parties referred to, that he should 
have ventured to commit such an indiscretion. 

"Yours faithfully, Richard Bentlet. 
"New Burlington Street, Jan. 12, 1854." 

To which Jerdan, in turn, wrote : 

"Mr. Bentlet and Mr. Jerda.n. 

" To the Editor of ^ The Critic ' London Literary 
Journal. 

" Sir, — Having admitted a letter from Mr. 
Bentley to your columns, impugning a statement 
you did me the honor to quote in your notice 
of the fourth volume of my Autobiography, I 
beg your permission to insert the following ob- 
servations on the complain^ : 

" If I could have supposed, for an instant, 
that the facts related were calculated to do Mr. 
Bentley the slightest injury, I never would have 
published them ; but, on the most earnest con- 
sideration of the matter, I must say that such 
an idea is perfectly incomprehensible. 

" In the one instance, I mention a report that 
Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer had paid a certain 
sum to Mr. Bentley for the restoration of a par- 
ticular copyright; and, in the other, I state 
from my own knowledge the circumstance of 
Mr. Dickens having paid a larger sum for a 
similar reassignment. 

"Now, I would ask, to what does this amount? 
It may go to prove the truism that publishers are 
more likely than authors to keep their coaches ; 
but all the rest simply amounts to the common- 
est commercial arrangement, viz., that Sir Ed- 
ward Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Dickens paid Mr. 
Bentley a fair price for what they desired to pur- 
chase, and which he had no higher or more prof- 
itable object in wishing to retain. In the more 
important case I was his own arbiter, and sure- 
ly I would not accuse myself of having been a 
party to a transaction injurious to my principal 
or to Mr. Dickens, by sanctioning a disreputa- 
ble arbitration, of which I may add, that it had 
the rare good fortune, at the time, to be per- 
fectly satisfactory to all concerned. 

"As for any breach of confidence, you, sir, 
are far too conversant with the literary world to 
suppose that these matters were not the com- 
mon talk of every cii'cle in London, and that 
the attempt to represent them as secrets is very 
preposterous. 



"I am indeed sorry that Mr. Bentley's feel- 
ings or amour propre have been disturbed ; but 
I am sure that few persons, except himself, will 
think that I have cast a blot on his publishing 
scutcheon. I am, sir, yours obediently, 

' ' W. Jerdan. 

"January 25th." 

Another letter from Mr. Bentley closed the 
controversy : 

" To the Editor of ' The Critic' 
"New Burlington Street, February 13, 1854. 
" Sir, — You will oblige ma by giving inser- 
tion in your journal to the accompanying letter 
from Mr. Forster, which has been handsomely 
sent to me without any solicitation on my part. 
"Yours faithfully, Richard Bentley." 

\_Copy inclosed.^ 
" 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, January 31, 1854, 

"Dear Sir, — I perceive that the 'Morning 
Herald ' which I have just received, comes from 
you, and I can not doubt that it is sent to me 
because it contains a correspondence between 
yourself and Mr. Jerdan, in reference to a state- 
ment on the part of the latter, in which my 
name is introduced. 

" I feel it right, in confirmation of your opin- 
ion, expressed in that correspondence, to state to 
you my own opinion, that the negotiation was 
undoubtedly of a private nature, and one with 
which the public have no concern. 

" Further, there were matters in dispute be- 
tween yourself and Mr. Dickens, the fair adjust- 
ment of which was taken into account when the 
the sum of £2250 was fixed upon as the price at 
which he should purchase back from you the 
copyright of ' Oliver Twist.' 

"This matter having been brought before the 
public without any fault of yours, it is just to- 
wards you that I should write these few words ; 
and I do so with the knowledge and consent of 
Mr. Dickens himself. Yours very truly, 

"John Forster. 
" R. Bentley, Esq." 

" Oliver Twist" completed, Dickens resigned 
the editorship to Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, 
who, we believe, still occupies that position. 
Just before the last installment was published, 
there appeared in " Bentley's Miscellany " this : 

"POETICAL EPISTLE FEOM FATHER PROUT 
TO BOZ. 



" A Rhyme ! a rhyme ! from a distant clime— from the 
gulf of the Genoese : 
O'er the rugged scalps of the Julian Alps, dear Boz ! 
I send you these, 



30 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



To light the Wick your candlestick holds up, or, 
should you list. 

To usher iu the yarn you spin concerning Oliver 
Twist. 

II. 
"Immense applause you've gained, O Boz ! through 
Continental Europe ; 

You'll make Pickwick oecumenick ;* of fame you 
have a sure hope ; 

For here your books are found, gadzooks ! in great- 
er luxe than auy 

That have issued yet, hotpress'd or wet, from the 
types of Galignani. 

in. 
"But neither, when you sport your pen, O potent 
mirth-corapeller ! 
Winning our hearts ' in monthly parts,' can Pick- 
wick or Sam Weller 
Cause us to weep with pathos deep, or shake with 

laugh spasmodical, 
As when yon drain your copious vein for Bentley's 
periodical. 

IV. 

"Folks all enjoy your Parish Boy— so truly you de- 
pict him; 

But I, alack! while thus you track your stinted 
Poor-law's victim. 

Must think of some poor nearer home — poor who, 
unheeded, perish, 

By squires despoiled, by 'patriots' gulled — I mean 
the starving Irish. 



"Yet there's no dearth of Irish mirth, which, to a 

mind of feeling, 
Seemeth to be the Helot's glee before the Spartan 

reeling : 
Such gloomy thought o'ercometh not the glow of 

England's humor, 
Thrice happy isle I long may the smile of genuine 

joy illume her ! 

TI. 

"Write on, young sage ! still o'er the page pour forth 

the flood of fancy ; 
Wax still more droll, wave o'er the soul Wit's wand 

of necromancy. 
Behold ! e'en now around your brow th' immortal 

laurel thickens ; 
Yea, Swift or Sterne might gladly learn a thing 

or two from Dickens. 

VII. 

"A rhyme! a rhyme! from a distant clime — a song 

from the sunny South ! 
A goodly theme, so Boz but deem the measure not 

uncouth. 
Would, for thy sake, that 'Peotjt' could make his 

bow iu fashion finer, 
'■Partanf (from thee) 'pour la Syrie,' for Greece 

and Asia Minor. 

" Genoa, \Uh December, 1837." 



CHAPTER VI. 

"NICHOLAS NICKLEBT.-' 

In January, 1838, "The Memoirs of Joseph 
Grimaldi, the Clown," edited by Dickens, il- 
lustrated by Criiikshank, was published by Mr, 
Bentley, in two volumes. It is amusingly 



written, full of merriment and quaint anecdot( 
of the great pantomimist, and has gone throu^i 
several editions. It was not, however, the 
composition of Mr. Dickens, being only " ed- 
ited " by him, as the title-page declares. 

The next work — and the second in the 
"green-leaf" series — was "Nicholas Nickle- 
by," the first number of which appeared 31st 
March, 1838. It extended to twenty numbers, 
and was published in a complete form, in the 
following year, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, 
dedicated to Mr. Macready. This novel show- 
ed that Dickens was still working for the eman- 
cipation of boyhood. In the preface, after 
mentioning hoAv he first came to hear of the 
gross mismanagement carried on in the York- 
shire schools, he resolved to go and see what 
they were like. 

" With that intent I went down into York- 
shire before I began this book, in very severe 
winter-time, which is pretty faithfully described 
herein. As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or 
two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen 
might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a 
visit from the author of the ' Pickwick Papers,' 
I consulted with a professional friend here, who 
had a Yorkshire connection, and with whom I 
concerted a pious fraud. He gave me some 
letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of 
my travelling companion; they bore referende 
to a supposititious little boy who had been left 
with a widowed mother who didn't know fvhat 
to do with him ; the poor lady had thought, as 
a means of thawing the tard}- compassion of 
her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a 
Yorkshire school ; I was the poor lady's friend, 
travelling that way ; and if the recipient of the 
letter could inform me of a school in his neigh- 
borhood, the writer would be very much obliged. 

"I went to several places in that part of the 
country where I understood these schools to be 
most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion 
to deliver a letter until I came to a certain town 
which shall be nameless. The person to whom 
it was addressed was not at home ; but he came 
down at night, through the snow, to the inn 
where I was staying. It was after dinner ; and 
he needed little persuasion to sit down by the 
fire in a warm corner, and take his share of the 
wine that was on the table. 

"I am afraid he is dead now. I recollect 
he was a jovial, ruddy, broad-faced man ; that 
we got acquainted directly ; and that we talked 
on all kinds of subjects, except the school, 
which he showed a great anxiety to avoid. 
Was there any large school near? I asked him, 
in reference to the letter. ' Oh yes,' he said ; 
' there was a pratty big 'un.' ' Was it a good 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKEXS. 



31 



one?' I asked. ' Ey I' he said, ' it was as good 
as anoother ; that was a' a matther of opinion ;' j 
and fell to looking at the fire, staring round the i 
room, and whistling a little. On my reverting 
to some other topic that we had been discussing, 
he recovered immediately ; but, though I tried 
him again and again, I never approached the 
question of the school, even if he were in the 
middle of a laugh, without observing that his 
countenance fell, and that he became uncom- 
fortable. At last, when we had passed a couple 
of hours or so very agreeably, he suddenly took 
up his hat, and, leaning over the table and look- 
ing me full in the face, said, in a low voice, 
' TVeel, Misther, we've been vary pleasant too- 
gather, and aril spak' my moind tiv'ee. Din- 
not let the weedur send her lattle boy to yan o' 
our schoolmeasthers, while there's a harse to 
hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep 
in. Ar wouldn't mak' ill words amang my 
neeburs, and ar speak tiv'ee quiet loike. But 
I'm dom'd if ar can gang to bed and not tellee, 
for weedur's sak', to keep the lattle boy from a' 
sike scoondrels while there's a harse to hoold 
in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in!' 
Repeating these words with great heartiness, and 
with a solemnity on his jolly face that made it 
look twice as large as before, he shook hands 
and went away. I never saw him afterwards, 
but I sometimes imagine that I descry a faint 
reflection of him in John Browdie." 

In reference to these gentry, we may here 
quote a few words from the original preface to 
this book : 

"It has afforded the author great amusement 
and satisfaction, during the progress of this 
work, to learn, from country friends and from a 
variety of ludicrous statements concerning him- 
self in provincial newspapers, that more than 
one Yorkshire schoolmaster lays claim to being 
the original of Mr. Squeers. One worthy, he 
has reason to believe, has actually consulted 
authorities learned in the law, as to his having 
good grounds on which to rest an action for 
libel ; another has meditated a journey to Lon- ': 
don, for the express purpose of committing an 
assault and battery on his traducer; a third 
perfectly remembers being waited on, last Jan- 
uary twelve month, by two gentlemen, one of 
whom held him in conversation while the other 
took his likeness ; and although Mr. Squeers 
has but one eye, and he has two, and the pub- ' 
lished sketch does not resemble him (whoever 
he may be) in any other respect, still he and all '• 
his friends and neighbors know at once for 
whom it is meant, because — the character is so 
like him." ■ 

" Nicholas Mckleby " is not quite so popular 



as some of Dickens's other fictions, although it 
is certainly not inferior to any of the other 
works of this illustrious author. The passages 
describing the deaths of Ralph Isickleby and 
Gride the Miser are dramatic in the highest de- 
gree, and inimitable as pieces of powerful writ- 
ing. John Browdie, with his hearty laugh and 
thoroughly English heart, will ever be an im- 
mense favorite. Dotheboys Hall and its ten- 
ants is a very sad history, and well might Dick- 
ens use his utmost endeavors to crush such an 
infamous hot-bed of misery and torment. Who 
has not roared at the eccentricities of ]Mrs. 
Nickleby, especially in that memorable inter- 
view with the gentleman in the small clothes? 

It is said that the Brothers Grant, the wealthy 
cotton -mill owners of Manchester, were the 
prototypes of the Brothers Cheeryble ; both are 
now dead, the elder one dying in March, 1855. 
In the original preface, Dickens having stated 
that they were portraits from life, and were still 
living, in the preface to a later edition he said : 
"If I were to attempt to sum up the hundreds 
of letters from all sorts of people, in all sorts of 
latitudes and climates, to which this unlucky 
paragraph has since gii'en rise, I should get 
into an arithmetical difficulty from which I 
could not easily extricate myself. Suffice it to 
say, that I believe the applications for loans, 
gifts, and offices of profit, that I have been re- 
quested to forward to the originals of the 
Brothers Cheeryble (with whom I never inter- 
changed any communication in my life), would 
have exhausted the combined patronage of all 
the lord chancellors since the accession of the 
House of Brunswick, and would have broken 
the rest of the Bank of England." 

In Mr. Samuel Smiles's admirable. " Self 
Help " (the later editions) is recorded a very 
touching instance of the kindness and gener- 
osity of these gentlemen. However, it is too 
long to transfer to these pages. 

Long before the completion of "Nicholas 
Nickleby," Mr. Edward Stirling produced a 
dramatic version of it, and received, in conse- 
quence, a sharp reproof in the ensuing number. 
It was performed at the Adelphi, on November 
19th, 1838, as a farce, in two acts, Mr. 0. Smith 
representing Newman Noggs ; Mr. Yates, 2Ian- 
talini ; and Mrs. Keel ey, /S'mi'Ae. Another adap- 
tation was brought out at the Strand Theatre, 
under the title of "The Fortunes of Smike.'' 
As recently as the end of 186G, INIr. J. L. Toole 
made a great hit by doubling the parts of 
Squeers and Newman Noggs, when playing in 
the provinces with Mrs. Billington, who made 
a capital JNIrs. Squeers, the termagant partner 
of the school-master. 



32 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



Sydney Smith, in a letter to Sir George Phil- 
lips, about September, 1838, wrote : " 'Nickle- 
by' is very good. I stood out against Mr. 
Dickens as long as I could, but he has con- 
quered me." 

And Thomas Moore, in his Diary, under date 
April 5, 1835, mentions dining at Messrs. Long- 
mans, in Paternoster Row, the company con- 
sisting of Sydney Smith, Canon Tate, Merivale, 
Dionysius the Tyrant, M'Culloch, and Hay- 
ward (the translator of " Faust "). " Conver- 
sation turned on Boz, the new comic writer. 
Was sorry to hear Sydney cry him down, and 
evidently without having given him a fair trial. 
Whereas, to me it appears one of the few proofs 
of good taste that the ' masses,' as they are call- 
ed, have yet given, there being some as nice 
humor and fun in the ' Pickwick Papers ' as in 
any work I have seen in our day. Hayward, 
the only one of the party that stood by me in 
this opinion, engaged me for a dinner (at his 
chambers) on Thursday next." 

In the following year Sydney Smith had form- 
ed an acquaintance with Dickens, and we find 
him writing to the author of " Nicholas Nick- 
leby :" 

"Nobody more — and more justly — talked of 
than yourself. The Miss Berrys, now at Rich- 
mond, live only to become acquainted with you, 
and have commissioned me to request you to 
dine with them Friday, the 29tb, or Monday, 
July 1st, to meet a Canon of St. Paul's, the 
Rector of Combe Florey, and the Vicar of 
Halberton, all equally well known to you; to 
say nothing of other and better people. The 
Miss Berrys and Lady Charlotte Lindsay have 
not the smallest objection to be pat into a num- 
ber, but, on the contrary, would be proud of the 
distinction ; and Lady Charlotte, in particular, 
you may marry to Newman Noggs. Pray come ; 
it is as much as my place is worth to send a re- 
fusal." 

We have already given evidence of Thack- 
eray's hearty appreciation of the author who 
has chronicled for us the adventures of " Oliver 
Twist." Later on, in "Eraser's Magazine," 
when commenting on the Royal Academy Ex- 
hibition, we find another interesting reference 
by Thackeray to Mr. Dickens, with a prophecy 
of his futm'e greatness: "Look (he says, in 
the assumed character of Michael Angelo Tit- 
marsh) at the portrait of Mr. Dickens — well ar- 
ranged as a picture, good in color and light and 
shadow, and as a likeness perfectly amazing ; a 
looking-glass could not render a better fac-sim- 
ile. Here we have the real identical man Dick- 
ens : the artist- must have understood the inAvard 
' Boz ' as well as the outward before he made 



this admirable representation of him. Whui 
cheerful intellectuality is about the man's eyc.v 
and a large forehead ! The mouth is too large 
and full, too eager and active, perhaps ; the 
smile is very sweet and generous. If Monsieur 
De Balzac, thatvoluminous physiognomist, could 
examine this head, he would no doubt interpret 
every line and wrinkle in it — the nose firm and 
well placed, the nostrils wide and full, as are the 
nostrils of all men of genius (this is Monsieur 
Balzac's maxim). The past and the future, 
says Jean Paul, are written in every counte- 
nance. I think we may promise ourselves a 
brilliant future from this one. There seems no 
flagging as yet in it, no sense of fatigue, or con- 
sciousness of decaying power. Long mayest 
thou, O Boz ! reign over thy comic kingdom ; 
long may we pay tribute — whether of three- 
pence weekly, or of a shilling monthly, it mat- 
ters not. Mighty prince ! at thy imperial feet, 
Titmarsh, humblest of thy servants, offers his 
vows of loyalty and his humble tribute of praise." 

And lecturing on " Week-day Preachers," at 
St. Martin's Hall,* in aid of the Jerrold Fund, 
Thackeray spoke of the delight which children 
derived from reading the works of Mr. Dickens, 
and mentioned that one of his own children said 
to him that she wished he "would write stories 
like those which Mr. Dickens wrote. The same 
young lady," he continued, " when she was ten 
years old, read 'Nicholas Nickleby' morning, 
noon, and night, beginning it again as soon "as 
she had finished it, and never wearying of its 
fun." 

Concerning the financial success of " Nicho- 
las Nickleby," it may be mentioned that the 
late Mr. Tegg, the publisher, writing to the 
"Times," in February, 1840, on copyrights, 
declared that the work produced the author 
£3000. 

At the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1840, 
a fine portrait of Dickens, painted by his friend 
Daniel Maclise, was exhibited. This is the 
portrait to which ThackerayC'alludes above. An 
engraving from it appeared in subsequent edi- 
tions of " Nicholas Nickleby." 



CHAPTER VII. 

PUBLICATION OF "THE OLD CUKIOSITT SHOP 
AND "BAENABY EUDGE." 

The first number of "Master Humphrey's 
Clock" appeared on the 4th of April, 1840. 
Not content with the unexampled success which 
had attended the issue of " Nicholas Nicklebv " 



July, 185T. 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



in shilling numbers, the publisher conceived the 
mistaken idea of altering the form of Mr. Dick- 
ens's new work. It was not to be in what is 
•technically known as "demy octavo," at one 
shilling, but in ungainly " imperial octavo,'" 
and in weekly numbers, at three-pence each. 
Messrs. Cattermole and "Phiz" (Hablot K. 
Browne) had undertaken the illustrations, and 
the work proceeded, but it soon became a mat- 
ter of policy, or rather of necessity, to revive 
the public interest ; and this was done by the 
resuscitation of Mr. Pickwick and of the two 
Wellers — father and son. Thus helped for- 
ward, the new work began to make its way 
steadily; and the two principal tales, "The 
Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge," 
are among the best and most popular of Mr. 
Dickens's stories. The work was published in 
a complete form, in the following year, by 
Messrs. Chapman & Hall. Eventually the au- 
thor thought fit to separate the stories, " and 
' Master Humphrey's Clock,' as originally con- 
structed/' he mentions, "became one of the 
lost books of the earth — which, we all know, 
are far more precious than any that can be read 
for love or money." 

The " Old Curiosity Shop " is a splendid and 
touching story. Little Nelly is a beautiful and 
delicate creation ; so likewise is the poor school- 
master, and his favorite scholar, who wrote so 
good a hand with such a very little one. We 
may here mention a curious fact, to which Mr. 
R. H. Home, in his "New Spirit of the Age," 
first directed attention. He says that the de- 
scription of Nelly's death, if divided into lines, 
will form that species of gracefully irregular 
blank verse which Shelley and Southey often 
used. Here is a specimen : 

"When Death strikes down the innocent and young, 
For every fragile form, from which he lets 

The panting spirit free, 

A hundred virtues rise, 
In shape of mercy, charity, and love, 

To walk the world and bless it. 

Of every tear 
That sorrowing nature sheds on such green graves, 
Some good is born, some gentler nature comes." 

Of that exquisitely beautiful creation, "Lit- 
tle Nell," Mr. Dickens has himself rem.arked : 
" I have a mournful pride in one recollection 
associated with 'Little Nell.' While she was 
yet upon her wanderings, not then concluded, 
there appeared in a literary journal an essay, 
of which she was the principal theme, so ear- 
nestly, so eloquently, and tenderly appreciative 
of her, and of all her shadowy kith and kin, 
that it would have been insensibility in me if I 
could have read it without an unusual glow of 
pleasure and encouragement. Long afterwards, 

3 



and when I had come to know him well, and 
see him, stout of heart, going slowly down into 
his grave, I knew the writer of that essay to be 
Thomas Hood." 

In the course of this review, Hood took occa- 
sion to say of the author : ' ' The poor are his 
especial clients. He delights to show worth in 
low places — living up a court, for example, with 
Kit and the industrious washerwoman his moth- 
er. To exhibit Honesty holding a gentleman's 
horse, or Poverty bestowing alms." 

Eraser, in 1850, said: "We have been told 
that when the ' Old Curiosity Shop ' was draw- 
ing to a close, he received heaps of anonymous 
letters in female hands, imploring him ' not to 
kill Little Nell.' The wretch ungallantly per- 
sisted in his murderous design ; and those gen- 
tle readers only wept, and forgave him." 

Dick Swiveller is a type and representative 
of a numerous class of young men not absolute- 
ly vicious, but too lazy to work, and who lounge 
away their lives resorting to all manner of shifts 
and contrivances to exist, yet, great at the clubs 
and meetings as he was, as 

"Perpetual Grand of the Glorious Apollos." 

Quilp is, perhaps, the most carefully-elaborated 
and highly-finished character of all — a Caliban 
and wretch, never more delighted than when 
inflicting pain on his meek wife, Mrs. Jiniwin, 
his mother-in-law, or that fawning, white-liv- 
ered hound, Sampson Brass, the attorney of 
Bevis Marks. To comment further would be 
to pass a glowing eulogium on every other 
character in the book. It was dedicated to his 
friend Samuel Rogers, the Banker Poet. 

"Barnaby Rudge" is a history of the noto- 
rious "No Popery" riots of 1780, which had 
hitherto not formed the subject of, or been in- 
troduced into, any work of fiction. The tale 
abounds in vigorous descriptions of the chief 
misguided actor, Lord George Gordon, and the 
dreadful scenes that ensued. The sketches of 
Old Willet, at the Maypole, at Chigwell, and 
the courtship of Joe Willett and Dolly Varden, 
are unsurpassed ; Sir Edward Chester evidently 
being intended for the celebrated Lord Chester- 
field, the decorously polite but heartless author 
of a worthless book entitled "Lord Chester- 
field's Letters to his Son." 

" Will " (writes a friend of the late novelist) 
"a great living painter of English manners, 
Mr. W. P. Frith, forgive an allusion to the 
early days when the success of his admirable 
picture of ' Dolly Varden ' led Charles Dick- 
ens to call on him, and, after expressing the 
warmest thanks for the feeling and appreciation 
which the artist's handiwork displayed, to give 



34 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



him a commission for other subjects, to be se- 
lected from the works of ' Boz ?' Dickens," con- 
tinues the writer, "wanted on canvas, and in 
hues which should live, the young artist's con- 
ception of the imaginary people with whose char- 
acteristics England was ringing. His hearty 
approval of the pictures, when painted, his per- 
sonal introduction of himself to thank the art- 
ist, and his check, with the well-known signa- 
ture, the ' C ' rather like a ' G,' and the elab- 
orate flourish beneath it, exactly as it is given 
outside the last edition of his works, are, we 
venture to say, like things of yesterday to Mr. 
Frith." 

It is doubtful if the illustrious author of 
" Barnaby Rudge " ever knew that the genial 
Tom Hood — for whom Dickens always had the 
greatest admiration, we may almost say affec- 
tion — once wrote an exquisitely beautiful ac- 
count of that work, as well as of "The Old 
Curiosity Shop." We know it as a fact, and 
the reader can judge for himself whether Hood 
was not the man, above all others, to appreci- 
ate Dickens. The reviewer says: "The first 
chapter pleasantly plants us, not in Cato Street, 
but on the borders of Epping Forest, at an an- 
cient ruddy Elizabethan inn, with a May-pole 
for its sign, an antique porch, quaint chimneys, 
and ' more gable-ends than a crazy man would 
care to count on a sunny day.' The ornament- 
ed eaves are haunted by twittering swallows, 
and the distorted roof is mobbed by clusters of 
cooing pigeons. Then for its landlord : there 
is old John Willett, as square and as slow as a 
tortoise ; and for its parlor customers, Long 
Parks, Tom Cobb, both taciturn and profound 
smokers ; and Solomon Daisy, that parochial 
Argus, studded all down his rusty black coat, 
and his long flapped waistcoat, with little queer 
buttons, like nothing except his eyes, but so 
like them, that as they twinkled and glistened 
in the light of the fire, which shone too in his 
bright shoe-buckles, he seemed all eyes from 
head to foot." 

As illustrative of Mr. Dickens's love of ani- 
mals — of ravens in particular — we may here be 
permitted to give his own remarks in a preface 
to the cheap edition of this work : "As it is 
Mr. Waterton's opinion that ravens are grad- 
ually becoming extinct in England, I offer a 
few words here about mine. 

" The raven in this story is a compound of 
two great originals, of whom I have been, at 
diflfei'ent times, the proud possessor. The first 
was in the bloom of his youth, when he was 
discovered in a modest retirement, in London, 
by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had 
from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne 



Page, 'good gifts,' which he improved, by study 
and attention, in a most exemplary manner. 
He slept in a stable — generally on horseback— 
and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his pre- 
ternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by 
the mere superiority of his genius, to walk oflf" 
unmolested with the dog's dinner from before 
his face. He was rapidly rising in acquire- 
ments and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his 
stable was newly painted. He observed the 
workmen closely, saw that they were careful of 
the paint, and immediately burned to possess 
it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all 
they had left behind, consisting of a pound or 
two of white lead ; and this youthful indiscre- 
tion terminated in death. 

" While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, 
another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered 
an older and more gifted raven at a village 
public-house, w^hich he prevailed upon the land- 
lord to part with for a consideration, and sent 
up to me. The first act of this sage was to 
administer to the effects of his predecessor, by 
disinterring all the cheese and half-pence he had 
buried in the garden — a work of immense labor 
and research, to which he devoted all the ener- 
gies of his mind. When he had achieved this 
task, he applied himself to the acquisition of 
stable language, in which he soon became such 
an adept, that he would perch outside my win- 
dow and drive imaginary horses with great skill 
all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his 
best, for his former master sent his duty witli 
him, ' and if I wished the bird to come out very 
strong, would I be so good as to show him jf 
drunken man ' — which I never did, having (for- 
tunately) none but sober people at hand. But I 
could hardly have respected him more, whatever 
the stimulating influences of this sight might 
have been. He had not the slightest respect, I 
am sorry to say, for me in return, or for any body 
but the cook ; to whom he was attached — but 
only, I fear, as a policeman might have been. 
Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a 
mile off, walking down the middle of the pub- 
lic street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and 
spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his ac- 
complishments. His gravity under those try- 
ing circumstances I never can forget, nor the 
extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to 
be brought home, he defended himself behind a 
pump, until overpowered by numbers. It may 
have been that he was too bright a genius to 
live long, or it may have been that he took some 
pernicious substance into his bill, and thence 
into his maw — which is not improbable, see- 
ing that he new-pointed the greater part of the 
garden wall by digging out the mortar, broke 



I 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



35 



luntless squares of glass by scraping away the 
"utty all round the frames, and tore up and 
swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a 
wooden staircase of six steps and a landing — 
but after some three years he too was taken ill, 
and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his 
eye to the last upon tlie meat as it roasted, and 
suddenly turned over on his back with a sepul- 
chral cry of ' Cuckoo.' Since then I have been 
ravenless." 

It is just worth while to remark, in connec- 
tion with this fondness for ravens, that a per- 
sonal friend, a bad punster, being at a party, 
and remarking on the mania Dickens seemed to 
have for these birds, said, "Dickens is raven 
mad.'^ This, being repeated, gave rise to a re- 
port, which was industriously spread by his de- 
tractors, that "Dickens was raving mad," and 
" was confined in a madhouse," and other silly 
rumors. 

" Barnaby Eudge" expressed the author's 
abhorrence to capital punishment, on the prin- 
ciple enunciated by Pistol, in Shakspeare's 
" King Henry V. :" 

"Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free, 
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate." 

The pathetic scene of the gray-headed old father 
following the dead body of his only son, merely 
to touch the lifeless hand of the boy so unjustly 
hung, also reminds one of Shakspeare's lines : 

"If I put out thy light, thou flaming minister, 
I can restore it, should I repent me ; 
But once put out thy light, thou cunning'st pattern 

of excelling nature, 
I know not that Promethean heat that can thy 

light relume." 

Some London publisher, about this time, hav- 
ing iss-ued imitations or piracies of some of Dick- 
ens's former works and titles, Thomas Hood, 
writing to the " Athengeum" (June, 1842) on 
"Copyright and Copy wrong," speaks of a con- 
versation he had had with a bookseller on a 
spurious "Master Humphrey's Clock." 

"Sir," said the bookseller, "if you had ob- 
served the name, it was Bos, not Boz — s, sir, 
not z ; and, besides, it would have been no pira- 
cy, sir, even with the z, because ' Master Hum- 
phrey's Clock,' you see, sir, was not published 
as by Boz, but by Charles Dickens !" 

In the summer of 1841, a dramatized version 
of the story, by Charles Selby, was produced at 
the Lyceum, and other versions appeared about 
the same time at various theatres. More re- 
cently, on November 13th, 1866, it was put on 
the stage at the Princess's, by Messrs. Vining 
and Watts Phillips, as a four-act drama, Miss 
Rodgers playing Barnaby Rudge, Mrs. John 



Wood Miss Miggs, Mr. Sl;ore Sir John Chester, 
A newspaper critic, speaking of Mrs. Wood's 
performance, observed : "If any one expected 
the subdued cough, the small groan, the sigh, 
the sniff, the spasmodic start, and the constant 
rubbing and tweaking of the nose to which Miss 
Miggs had recourse in the frequent moments of 
her vexation, would have been reproduced by 
Mrs. John Wood in illustration of the novelist's 
description, they must have overlooked the pe- 
culiarities of that liberty-loving country from 
which the debutante has just come, after a so- 
journ of some twelve years. It is quite appar- 
ent that Mrs. John Wood has been in the habit 
of representing Miss Miggs repeatedly on the 
other side the Atlantic, in a version which has 
been doubtless made by some patriotic Ameri- 
can, who believed that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence secured the right of departing as far 
as possible from the intentions of the British 
author. The Miss Miggs who appeared last 
evening on the stage of the Princess's is a 
' Yankee gal ' of the familiar Down-East pat- 
tern, who sings one of the high-toned ditties 
characteristic of her class, mixes up grotesque 
pantomime extravagances with nasal inflections 
and angular attitudes, and thinks nothing of 
sprawling on tables and tumbling into tubs. 
Noi', in personal appearance, will the good-look- 
ing, though coarse-mannered, companion of 
Mrs. Varden at all correspond to the portraiture 
which was also so long identified with one of 
the principal figures in ' Master Humphrey's 
Clock.' The double disappointment thus expe- 
rienced found audible expression in the course 
of the performance, and drew the customary ex- 
postulation of a first night from Mr. Vining, 
who took the opportunity of a call at the end 
of the third act to address the audience. ' On 
the present occasion,' observed Mr. Vining, ' I 
do not appear before you as an actor ; but from 
a private box I have seen that a determination 
to hiss this piece from its commencement has 
been apparent on the part of a few persons 
among the audience. I have watched for an 
expression of public opinion. If you have seen 
any thing which deserved hissing, hiss away — 
(cheers) — but some, to the degradation of their 
manhood, have hissed a lady who was a stranger 
in the land.' " Mr. George Honey was after- 
wards substituted to play the part, and the piece 
ran until January following. 

That our author, about this time, was busy in 
" society" as well as in literature, we haA^e good 
evidence from the examples of his correspond- 
ence which exist in contemporary biography. 
With the Countess of Blessington he had been 
acquainted for some time. On one occasion 



36 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



Dickens fell in with a remarkable clairvoyant — 
a "magnetic boy," as he is styled, and our au- 
thor thus writes to the Countess: "Have you 
seen Townsend's magnetic boy ? You heard 
of him, no doubt, from Count d'Orsay. If you 
get him to Gore House, don't, I entreat you, 
have more than eight people — four is a better 
number — to see him. He fails in a crowd, and 
is marvellous before a few. I am told, that 
down in Devonshire there are young ladies in- 
numerable who read crabbed manuscripts with 
the palms of their hands, and who, so to speak, 
are literary all over. I begin to understand 
what a blue-stocking means ; and have not the 

slightest doubt that Lady , for instance, 

could write quite as entertaining a book with 
the sole of her foot as ever she did with her 
head. I am a believer in earnest, and am sure 
you would be if you saw this boy, under moder- 
ately favorable circumstances, as I hope you will 
before he leaves England."* 

It was about this time that "The Picnic 
Papers," "by various hands," and edited by 
Dickens, was issued by Mr. Henry Colburn, in 
three volumes, with illustrations by George 
Cruikshank. The work was the result of a se- 
ries of literary contributions in aid of the fami- 
ly of Mr. Macrone, Avho had just died. He was 
described in the preface as "A publisher who 
died prematurely young, and in the prime and 
vigor of his years, before he had time or opportu- 
nity to make any provision for his wife and in- 
fant children, and at the moment when his pros- 
pects were the brightest, and the difficulties of his 
enterprise were nearly overcome." The editor 
led off with " The Lamplighter's Story." The 
contributors comprised Messrs. Talfourd, Thom- 
as Moore, W. H. Maxwell, Leitch Ritchie, Mi- 
chael Honan, John Forster, Allan Cunningham, 
and W. Harrison Ainsworth. The book served 
the purpose it was intended for, and realized a 
large sum. It is now seldom read, and then 
more for the editor's tale than for any thing else 
contained in it. 

In the July of this year (1841) a public din- 
ner in honor of Dickens took place at Edin- 
burgh, and went oiF with gi-eat eclat, Professor 
Wilson (the celebrated " Christopher North") 
presiding.! 

* Madden's "Life of Lady Blessington," June, 1S41. 

t Mr. Dickens's speech upon this occasion Is given 
in the great novelist's collected " Speeches," recently 
published. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Dickens's visit to America. 

Long before he fixed any date for his depart- 
ure, Dickens had promised Washington Irving, 
and many other correspondents in America, 
that he would come and see them. The prog- 
ress of " Oliver Twist," " Nicholas Nicklcby," 
and other works, however, delayed the event, 
and many of his English admirers did all that 
lay in their power to keep him at home. 
" Worked hard," says poor Ilaydon, the paint- 
er, in his Diary, under date of December 10th; 
"Talfourd said he introduced Dickens to Lady 
Holland. She hated the Americans, and did 
not want Dickens to go. 

" She said : ' Why can not you go down to 
Bristol, and see some of the third or fourth-class 
people, and they'll do just as well ?' " 

And the genial Thomas Hood, in his article 
on " Barnaby Rndge," after lamenting the tem- 
porary loss of Dickens, thus excuses his ab- 
sence : " Availing himself of the pause for a lit- 
tle well-earned rest and recreation, the author, 
it appears, has sailed on a long-projected trip to 
America ; or, according to Mr. Weller, senior, 
has ' made away with hisself to another, though 
not a better, world,' though it's called a new 
one. In fact he is, we hope, paddling prosper- 
ously across the Atlantic, while we are sitting 
down to criticise the characters he has left be- 
hind him in his ' Barnaby Rudge.' " 

To another journal Hood sent these lines : 

TO C. DICKENS, ESQ., 

ON ins DEPAETUEE FOE AMEEIOA. 

" Pshaw ! away with leaf and herrj% 

And the sober-sided cup ! 
Bring a goblet, and bright sherry, 

And a bumper fill me up ! 
Though a pledge I had to shiver, 

And the longest ever was, 
Ere his vessel leaves our river, 

I would drink a health to Boz ! 
Here's success to all his antics, 

Since it pleases him to roam, 
And to p'addle o'er Atlautics, 

After such a sale at home ! 
May he shun all rocks whatever, 

And each shallow sand that lurks, 
And his passage be as clever 

As the best among his works 1" 

It was on the 3d of January, 1842, that our 
author and his wife left England for the United 
States. They went to Liverpool, and crossed 
the Atlantic in the "Britannia" steam-packet. 
Captain Hewett. The result of this trip was i 
the publication, by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in • 
October of the same year, of " A^merican Notes 
for General Circulation," in two volumes, with 
a frontispiece by Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



37 



The dedication was as follows : 

" I DEDICATE TUIS BOOK 

TO THOSE FEIE>'DS OF iMINE IN AMEEIOA 

AVHO, 

gitln'o jie a welcome i iltxst ever geatefuxlt 

a:sd proudly eemembee, 

left jiy judgment 

FKEE; 

AND WHO, LOVING THEIK COTJNTKY, 

[JAN BE-VK THE THrTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD-HTTMOB- 

EDLY, AND IN A KIND SPIRIT." 

The publication, however, gave great offense 

to our author's American readers, and, as he 

light have foreseen, he got abused and vilified 

lost unmercifully. Judge Haliburton (" Sam 

slick"), in one of his works, alluding to the 

fetes and receptions given to Dickens, said 

lat, on his homeward passage, he had suffered 

jverely from sea-sickness, and all the kindness 

le had experienced had been cast overboard. 

Whether Dickens had in his mind's eye the 
idvice tendered by old Weller to Sam, Avhen he 
'proposed having a "planner" to carry Mr. 
Pickwick from the Fleet Prison, is uncertain : 

"There ain't no vurks in it," whispered his 
father. " It 'nil hold him easy, with his hat 
and shoes on, and breathe through the legs, 
vich is holler. Have a passage ready taken for 
"Merriker. The 'Merrikin Gov'ment vill never 
give him up, ven they finds as he's got money 
to spend, Sammy. Let the gov'ner stop there 
till Mrs. Bardell's dead, or Mr. Dodson and 
Fogg's hung, which last ewent I think is the 
most likely to happen first, Sammy ; and then 
let him come back and write a book about the 
'Merrikins as'll pay all his expenses and more, 
if he blows 'em up enough." 

Emerson, in " The Conduct of Life " (in the 
Essay on " Behavior"), writes : 

" Charles Dickens self-sacrificingly under- 
took the reform^^tion of our American manners 
in unspeakable particulars. I think the lesson 
was not quite lost; that it held bad m'anners 
up, so that the churls could see the deformity. 
Unhappily, the book has its own deformities. 
It ought not to need to print in a reading-room 
a caution to strangers not to speak loud ; nor 
to persons who look over fine engravings, that 
they should be handled like cobwebs and but- 
terflies' wings ; nor to persons who look at 
marble statues, that they shall not smite them 
with their canes." 

In publishing a new edition of " American 
Notes," in 1850, Dickens, in the preface, urged 
that " prejudiced I have never been, otherwise 
than in favor of the United States. * * * To 
represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, ani- 
mosity, or partisanship, is merely to do a very 
foolish thing, which is always a very easy one. 



and which I have disregarded for eight years, 
and could disregard for eighty more. " 

Whatever transatlantic critics may have 
thought of the work. Lord Jeffrey, on the ap- 
pearance of the first edition, wrote the author a 
letter, in which he says : "A thousand thanks 
for your charming book, and for all the pleas- 
ure, profit, and relief it has afforded me. You 
have been very tender to our sensitive friends 
beyond the sea, and really said nothing which 
will give any serious offense to any moderately 
rational patriot among them. The slavers, of 
course, will give you no quarter, and of course 
you did not expect they would. * * * Your 
account of the silent or solitary imprisonment 
system is as pathetic and as powerful a piece 
of writing as I have ever seen, and your sweet 
airy little snatch of the little woman taking her 
new babe home to her young husband,* and 
your manly and feeling appeal in behalf of the 
poor Irish, or rather the affectionate poor of all 
races and tongues, who are patient and tender 
to their children, under circumstances which 
would make half the exemplary parents among 
the rich monsters of selfishness and discontent, 
remind us that we have still among us the cre- 
ator of Nelly and Smike, and the schoolmaster 
and his dying pupil, and must continue to win 
for you still more of that homage of the heart, 
that love and esteem of the just and the good, 
which, though it should never be disjoined from 
them, should, I think you must already feel, be 
better than fortune or fame." 

Very recently it has been made known that 
poor Tom Hood, almost immediately upon its 
appearance, reviewed the work, under the title 
of " Boz in America." In his happiest vein 
of drollery, he conjectures that it would be im- 
possible for Mr. Boz to go to "the States" 
without losing all his English characteristics, 
and returning to his friends a regular Down- 
East Yankee : " So strong, indeed, was this 
impression, that certain blue-stockinged proph- 
etesses even predicted a new Avatar of the cel- 
ebrated Mr. Pickwick, in slippers and loose 
trowsers, a nankeen jacket, and a straw hat as 
large as an umbrella. Sam Weller was to re- 
appear as his ' help,' instead of a footman, still 
full of droll sayings, but in a slang more akin 
to his namesake, the Clock - maker : while 
Weller, senior, was to revive on the box of a 
Boston long stage — only calling himself Jona- 
than, instead of Tony, and spelling it with a G. 
A Virginian Widow Bardell was as a matter of 

* See Chapter XII.. "American Notes." A very fin- 
ished and beautiful little incident, related in that nat- 
ural and truthful manner in which Dickens excels all 
Other writers. 



38 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



course ; and some visionaries even foresaw a 
slave-owning Mr. Snodgrass, a coon-hunting 
Mr. Winkle, a wide-awake Joe, and a forest- 
clearing Bob Sawyer.* But, upon the appear- 
ance of the book itself," continues Hood, " the 
romanticists were in despair, and reluctantly 
abandoned all hopes of a Pennsylvanian Nich- 
olas Nickleby, affectionately darning his moth- 
er — a New Yorkshire Mr. Squeers, flogging 
creation — a black Smike — a brown Kate — and 
a Bostonian Newman Noggs, alternately swal- 
lowing a cocktail and a cobbler." 

Professor Felton, alluding to the death of 
Washington Irving, in a speech, in the latter 
part of the year 1859, gave this interesting 
reminiscence of the friendship existing between 
Dickens and Irving : 

"The time when I saw the most of Mr. Ir- 
ving was in the winter of 1842, during the visit 
of Mr. Charles Dickens in New York. I had 
known this already distinguished writer in Bos- 
ton and Cambridge, and, while passing some 
weeks with my dear and lamented friend, Al- 
bert Sumner, I renewed my acquaintance with 
Mr. Dickens, often meeting him in the brilliant 
literary society which then made New York a 
most agreeable resort. Halleck, Bryant, Wash- 
ington Irving, Davis, and others scarce less at- 
tractive by their genius, wit, and social graces, 
constituted a circle not to be surpassed any- 
where in the world. I passed much of the 
time with Mr. Irving and Mr. Dickens, and it 
was delightful to witness the cordial intercourse 
of the young man, in the flush and glory of his 
youthful genius, and his elder compeer, then in 
the assured possession of immortal renown, 
Dickens said, in his frank, hearty manner, that 
from his childhood he had known the works of 
Irving ; and that, before he thought of coming 
to this country, he had received a letter from 
him, expressing the delight he felt in reading 
the story of 'Little Nell;' and from that day 
they had shaken hands autograjihically across 
the Atlantic." 

After Professor Felton' s reminiscences, it 
may not be uninteresting to quote the following 
extract from a letter written by Washington 
Irving to his niece (Mrs. Storrow), under date 
May 25, 1841, in which he mentions a letter he 
had just received from Dickens, in reply to one 
from himself: 

" And now comes the third letter from that 
glorious fellow, Dickens (Boz), in reply to the 

* "With the wishes of these admirers of Boz we 
can in some degree sympathize ; for what could be a 
greater treat, in the reading way, than the perplexi- 
ties of a squatting Mr. Pickwick or a settling Mrs. 
Nickleby ?" 



one I wrote, expressing my heartfelt delight 
with his writings, and my yearnings towards 
himself. See how completely we sympathize 
in feeling : 

" ' There is no man in the world,' replies 
Dickens, ' who could have given me the heart- 
felt pleasure you have by your kind note of the 
13th of last month. There is no living writer, 
and there are very few among the dead, whose 
approbation I should feel so proud to earn ; and, 
with every thing you have written upon my 
shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart 
of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If 
you could know how earnestly I write this, you 
would be glad to read it — as I hope you will be, 
faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand I au- 
tographically hold out to you over the broad 
Atlantic. 

" ' I wish I could find in your welcome letter 
some hint of an intention to visit England. I 
can't. I have held it at arm's length, and taken 
a bird's-eye view of it, after reading it a great 
many times ; but there is no greater encourage- 
ment in it, this way, than on a microscopic in- 
spection. I should love to go with you — as I 
have gone, God knows how often — into Little 
Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green Arbor Court, 
and Westminster Abbey. I should like to travel 
with you, outside the last of the coaches, down 
to Bracebridge Hall. It would make my heart 
glad to compare notes with you about that shab- 
by gentleman in the oil-cloth hat and red nose, 
who sat in the nine-cornered back parlor of the 
Mason's Arms ; and about Robert Preston, and 
the tallow-chandlers widow, whose sitting-room 
is second nature to me ; and about all those de- 
lightful places and people that I used to talk 
about and dream of in the day-time, when a 
very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care- 
of boy. I have a good deal Jo say, too, about 
that dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you can't 
help feeing fonder of than you ought to be ; 
and much to hear concerning Moorish legend, 
and poor unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and 
yet I should show you his mutilated carcass 
with a joy past all expression. 

"'I have been so accustomed to associate you 
with my pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and 
with my leisure hours, that I rush at once into 
full confidence with you, and fall, as it were nat- 
urally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your 
open arms. Questions come thronging to my 
pen as to the lips of people who meet after long 
hoping to do so. I don't know what to say first, 
or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly dis- 
posed to break off and tell you again how glad I 
am this moment has arrived. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



39 



' • ' My dear Washington Irving, I can not 
thank you enough for your cordial and generous 
praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratifi- 
cation it has given me. I hope to have many 
letters from you, and to exchange a frequent 
correspondence. I send this to say so. After 
the first two or three, I shall settle down into a 
connected style, and become gradually rational. 

" 'You know what the feeling is, after hav- 
ing written a letter, sealed it, and sent it off. I 
shall picture you reading this, and answering it, 
before it has lain one night in the post-ofiice. 
Ten to one that before the fastest packet could 
reach New York I shall be writing again. 

" ' Do you suppose the post-ofiice clerks care 
to receive letters? I have my doubts. They 
get into a dreadful habit of indifference. A 
postman, I imagine, is quite callous. Conceive 
his delivering one to himself, without being 
startled by a preliminary double knock !' " 

Irving, writing again to Mrs. Storrow, 29th of 
October following, says : 

"What do you think? Dickens is actually 
coming to America. He has engaged passage 
for himself and his wife in the steam-packet for 
Boston, for the 4th of January next. He says : 
' I look forward to shaking hands wath you, with 
an interest I can not (and I would not if I could) 
describe. You can imagine, I dare say, some- 
thing of the feelings with which I look forward 
to being in America. I can hardly believe I 
am coming.' " 

But to return to Professor Eelton and his recol- 
lections of Irving and Dickens. He continues : 

" Great and varied as was the genius of Mr. 
Irving, there was one thing he shrank Avith a 
comical terror from attempting, and that was a 
dinner speech. A great dinner, however, was to 
be given to Mr. Dickens in New York, as one 
had already been given in Boston, and it was 
evident to all that no man like Washington Ir- 
ving could be thought of to preside. With all 
his dread of making a speech, he was obliged to 
obey the universal call, and to accept the pain- 
ful pre-eminence. I saw him daily during the 
interval of preparation, either at the lodgings of 
Dickens, or at dinner, or at evening parties. I 
hope I showed no want of sympathy with his 
forebodings, but I could not help being amused 
with his tragi-comical distress which the thought 
of that approaching dinner had caused him. His 
pleasant humor mingled with the real dread, and 
played with the w^himsical horrors of his own po- 
sition with an irresistible drollery. Whenever 
it was alluded to, his invariable answer was, ' I 
shall certainly break down!' — uttered in a half- 
melancholy tone, the ludicrous effect of which it 
is impossible to describe. He was haunted, as 



if by a nightmare ; and I could only compare 
his dismay to that of Mr. Pickwick, who was so 
alarmed at the prospect of leading about that 
' dreadful horse ' all day. At length the long- 
expected evening arrived. A company of the 
most eminent persons, from all the professions 
and every walk of life, were assembled, and Mr. 
Irving took the chair. I had gladly accepted 
an invitation, making it, however, a condition 
that I should not be called upon to speak — a 
thing I then dreaded quite as much as Mr. Ir- 
ving himself. The direful compulsions of life 
have since helped me to overcome, in some 
measure, the post-prandial fright. Under the 
circumstances — an invited guest, with no im- 
pending speech — I sat calmly and watched with 
interest the irnposing scene. I had the honor 
to be placed next but one to Mr. Irving, and 
the great pleasure of sharing in his conversa- 
tion. He had brought the manuscript of his 
speech, and laid it under his plate. '1 shall 
certainly break down,' he repeated over and 
over again. At last the moment arrived. Mr. 
Irving rose, and was received with deafening and 
long-continued applause, which by no means less- 
ened his apprehension. He began in his pleas- 
ant voice ; got through two or three sentences 
pretty easily, but in the next hesitated ; and, af- 
ter one or two attempts to go on, gave it up, with 
a graceful allusion to the tournament, and the 
troop of knights all armed and eager for the fray ; 
and ended with the toast, ' Charles Dickens, the 
guest of the nation.' ' There !' said he, as he 
resumed his seat under a repetition of the ap- 
plause which had saluted his rising — ' there ! I 
told you I should bi'eak down, and I've done it.' 

"There certainly never was a shorter after- 
dinner speech ; and I doubt if there ever was a 
more successful one. The manuscript seemed 
to be a dozen or twenty pages long, but the print- 
ed speech was not as many lines. 

"Mr. Irving often spoke with a good-humor- 
ed envy of the felicity with which Dickens al- 
ways acquitted himself on such occasions."* 



* This speech is given in " The Speeches of Charles 
Dickens," recently published. Thomas Moore, in his 
Diary, speaking of running up to London to act as 
steward of the Literary Fund Dinner at the Freema- 
sons' Tavern, H.R.H. the Prince Consort acting as 
Chairman, says : " AFay 11th, 1S42. — By-the-by, Irving 
had yesterday come to Murray's with the determina- 
tion, as I found, not to go to the dinner, and all 
begged of me to i;se my influence with him to change 
this resolution. But he told me his mind was made 
up on the point, that the drinking his health, and the 
speech he would have to make in return, were more 
than he durst encounter ; that he had broken down 
at the Dickens Dinner (of which he was Chairman) 
in America, and obliged to stop short in the middle 
of his oration, which made him resolve not to en- 
counter another such accident. In vain did I rep- 



40 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



Immediately after dinner, Irving and Dickens 
started off together to Washington, to spend a 
few days," and there took leave of one another. 
Irving at this time having just received his ap- 
pointment as Minister to Spain, Dickens wrote 
to him: "We passed through — literally passed 
through — this place again to-day. I did not 
come to see you, for I really had not the heart 
to say good-bye again, and I felt more than I 
can tell you when we shook hands last Wednes- 
day. You will not be at Baltimore, I fear ? I 
thought at the time, that you only said you might 
be there, to make our parting the gayer. 

"Wherever you go, God bless you! What 
pleasure I have had in seeing and talking with 
you, I will not attempt to say. I shall never 
forget it as long as I live. What would I give 
if we could have a quiet walk together I Spain 
is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. 
But if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies 
to think of a man who loves you, and holds com- 
munion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than 
any other person alive — leisure from listlessness, 
I mean — and will write to me in London, you 
will give me an inexpressible amount of pleas- 
ure." 

Dickens took the opportunity, in a number of 
" All the Year Round," March, 18G2 (when the 
song "A Young Man from the Country" was 
very popular, and which suggested the article), 
to remark that what he had originally written 
about the United States had been fully borne 
out in the recent events in that great republic. 



CHAPTER IX. 

FURTHER AMERICAN EXPERIENCES. 

In 1848 there appeared a new edition of an 
extensive and important work on " Prison Dis- 
cipline." The author was the Rev. John Field, 
chaplain of the county jail at Reading, in Berk- 
shire, and well known in literary circles as the 
author of a " Life of John Howard, the Philan- 
thropist," and editor of the " Howard Corre- 
spondence." This work on prison discipline had 
attracted considerable attention ; and as the au- 
thor, in advocating the advantages of the sepa- 
rate system of imprisonment, took occasion to 
mention Mr. Dickens's remarks in his " Ameri- 



resent to him that a few words would be quite suffi- 
cient iu returning thanks. ' That Dickens Dinner,' 
which he always pronounced with strong emphasis, 
hammering away all the time with his right arm, 
more, suo, 'that Dickens Dinner' still haunted his im- 
agination, and I almost gave up all hope of persuad- 
ing him." The arguments proved irresistible, and 
Irving went to it. 



can Notes " upon the Solitary Prison at Phila- 
delphia, the latter felt it his duty to reply : 

' ' As Mr. Field condescends to quote some va- 
porings about the account given by Mr. Charles 
Dickens in his ' American Notes ' of the Solitary 
Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really 
wish for some few words of information on the 
subject. For this purpose Mr. Charles Dickens 
has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at 
the close of that day. 

"He left his hotel for the prison at twelve 
o'clock, being waited on, by appointment, by the 
gentleman who showed it to him, and he return- 
ed between seven and eight at night ; dining in 
the prison in the course of that time, which, ac- 
cording to his calculation, in despite of the Phil- 
adelphia newspaper, rather exceeded two hours. 
He found the prison admirably conducted, ex- 
tremely clean, and the system administered in a 
most intelligent, kind, orderly, tender, and care- 
ful manner. He did not consider (nor should 
he, if he were to visit Pentonville to-morrowj 
that the book in which visitors were expected to 
record their observations of the i)lace was in- 
tended for the insertion of criticisms on the sys- 
tem, but for honest testimony to the manner of 
its administration, and to that he bore, as an im- 
partial visitor, the highest testimony in his pow- 
er. In returning thanks for his health being 
drunk, at the dinner within its walls, he said 
that what he had seen that day was running in 
his mind ; that he could not help reflecting on 
it ; and that it was an awful punishment. If 
the American officer who rode with him after- 
wards should ever see these words, he will per- 
haps recall his conversation with Mr. Dickens 
on the road, as to Mr. Dickens having said so 
very plainly and very strongly. In reference 
to the ridiculous assertion that Mr. Dickens in 
his book termed a woman ' quite beautiful ' who 
was a negress, he positively believes that he was 
shown no negress in the prison, but one who was 
nursing a woman much diseased, and to whom 
no reference is made in his published account. 
In describing three young women, ' all convict- 
ed at the same time of a conspiracy,' he may, 
possibly, among many cases, have substituted in 
his memory, for one of them whom he did not 
see, some other prisoner, confined for some oth- 
er crime, whom he did see ; but he has not the 
least doubt of having been guilty of the (Ameri- 
can) enormity of detecting beauty in the passive 
quadroon or mulatto girl, or of having seen ex- 
actly what he describes ; and he remembers the 
girl more particularly described in this connec- 
tion perfectly. Can Mr. Field really suppose 
Mr. Dickens had any interest or purpose in mis- 
representing the system, or that, if he could be 






LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



41 



guilty of such unworthy conduct, or desire to do 
it any thing but justice, he could have volunteer- 
ed the narrative of a man's having, of his own 
choice, undergone it for two years ? 

" We will not notice the objection of Mr. Field 
(who strengthens the truth of Mr. Burns to na- 
ture, by the testimony of Mr. Pitt I) to the dis- 
cussion of such a topic as the present in a work 
of 'mere amusement;' though we had thought 
we remembered in that book a word or two 
about slavery, which, although a very amusing, 
can scarcely be considered an unmitigatedly 
comic theme. We are quite content to believe, 
without seeking to make a convert of the Rev. 
Mr. Field, that no work need be one of 'mere 
amusement,' and that some works to which he 
would apply that designation have done a little 
good in advancing principles to which, we hope 
and will believe, for the credit of his Christian 
office, he is not indifferent." 

However, all these disputes and " angry recol- 
lections" of the America of 1842, were finally 
disposed of by Mr. Dickens on his arrival home 
after a second visit to that great country. At 
the end of this little Memoir we give the great 
novelist's public testimony of the change in his 
experiences of America, with the "Postscript" 
which he then declared should forever after con- 
tinue to form a part of any new edition of 
"American Notes." 

One of the prime objects in Mr. Dickens's visit 
to our transatlantic cousins was the endeavor to 
place the vexed question of International Copy- 
right on a sound and proper footing, and when- 
ever an available occasion presented itself he 
strenuously urged his ideas and views. Return- 
ing to England, he forwarded to the " Athenee- 
um" this letter, for which he had desired the 
widest publicity, in the hope that it might assist 
in bringing about the much-desired International 
Convention. It was inserted with the following 
editorial note : 

" On the subject of literary piracy we have 
received the following letter from Mr. Charles 
Dickens. We do not see very clearly the good 
that would result even from a general adoption 
of the proposed measures ; but the straightfor- 
ward and hearty way in which the writer has, 
under the most discouraging circumstances, set 
himself in opposition to the disgraceful practice, 
entitles all his suggestions to respectful atten- 
tion: 

" 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate,) 
Eegent's Park, July T, 1842. j 

" You may perhaps be aware that, during my 
stay in America, I lost no opportunity of en- 
deavoring to awaken the public mind to a sense 
of the unjust and iniquitous state of the law of 



that country in reference to the wholesale piracy 
of British works. Having been successful in 
making the subject one of general discussion in 
the United States, I carried to Washington, for 
presentation to Congress by Mr. Clay, a petition 
from the whole body of American authors, 
earnestly praying for the enactment of an Inter- 
national Copyright Law, It was signed by Mr. 
Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Cooper, 
and every man Avho had distinguished himself 
in the literature of America, and has since been 
referred to a Select Committee of the House of 
Representatives. To counteract any effect 
which might be produced by that petition, a 
meeting was held at Boston — which you will 
remember is the seat and stronghold of learn- 
ing and letters in the United States — at which 
a memorial against any change in the existing 
state of things in this respect was agreed to, 
with but one dissentient voice. This document, 
which, incredible as it may appear to you, was 
actually forwarded to Congress and received, 
deliberately stated that, if English authors were 
invested with any control over the republication 
of their own books, it would be no longer possi- 
ble for American editors to alter and adapt 
them (as they do now) to the American taste. 
This memorial was without loss of time rejDlied 
to by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with the 
natural indignation of a gentleman and a man 
of letters, upon its extraordinary dishonesty. I 
am satisfied that this brief mention of its tone 
and spirit is sufficient to impress you with the 
conviction that it becomes all those who are in 
any way connected with the literature of Eng- 
land to take that high stand to which the nature 
of their pursuits, and the extent of their sphere 
of usefulness, justly entitle them, to discourage 
the upholders of such doctrines by every means 
in their power, and to hold themselves aloof 
from the remotest participation in a system from 
which the moral sense and honorable feeling of 
all just men must instinctively recoil. For 
myself, I have resolved that I will never from 
this time enter into any negotiation with any 
person for the transmission across the Atlantic 
of early proofs of any thing I may write, and 
that I will forego all profit derivable from such 
a source. I do not venture to urge this line of 
proceeding upon you, but T would beg to suggest, 
and to lay great stress upon the necessity of ob- 
serving, one other course of action, to which I 
can not too emphatically call your attention. 
The persons who exert themselves to mislead 
the American public on this question, to put 
down its discussion, and to suppress and distort 
the truth in reference to it in every possible way 
(as you may easily suppose) are those who have 



42 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



a strong interest in the existing system of 
piracy and plunder; inasmuch as, so long as it 
continues, they can gain a very comfortable liv- 
ing out of the brains of other men, while they 
would find it very difficult to find bread by the 
exercise of their own. These are the editors 
and proprietors of newspapers almost exclusively 
devoted to the republication of popular English 
works. They are, for the most part, men of 
very low attainments, and of more than indif- 
ferent reputation, and I have frequently seen 
them, in the same sheet in which they boast of 
the rapid sale of many thousand copies of an 
English reprint, coarsely and insolently attack- 
ing the author of that very book, and heaping 
scurrility and slander upon his head. I would 
therefore entreat you, in the name of the hon- 
orable pursuit with which you are so intimate- 
ly connected, never to hold correspondence with 
any of these men, and never to negotiate with 
them for the sale of early proofs, over which you 
have control, but to treat on all occasions with 
some respectable American publishing house, 
and with such an establishment only. Our 
common interest in this subject, and my advo- 
cacy of it, single-handed, on every occasion that 
has presented itself during my absence from 
Europe, forms my excuse for addressing you. 
"I am, etc., Charles Dickers." 

To revert to the American visit, we may state 
that for the " Dickens Ball," at New York, on 
February 14th, 1842, a committee of the citizens 
recommended, among many other suggestions of 
a similar character, the following: 

OEDER OF DANCES AND TABLEAUX VI- 
VANTS. 

1. Grand March. 

2. Tableau Vivant "A Sketch, by Boz." 

3. Amilie Quadrille. 

4. Tableau Vivant " The Seasons," a poem, with 

music. 

5. Quadrille Waltz, selections. 

6. Tableau Vivant The book of " Oliver Twist," 

7. Quadrille March Norma. 

8. Tableau Vivant "The Ivy Green." 

9. Victoria Waltz. 

10. Tableau Vivant " Little Nell." 

11. Basket Quadrille. 

12. Tableau Vivant The book of "Nicholas 

Nickleby." 

13. March. 

14. Tableau Vivant "A Sketch, by Boz," 

15. Spanish Dance. 

16. Tableau Vivant " The Pickwick Papers." 

It is, perhaps, well to remark that " Mrs. Leo 
Hunter's dinner party" was presented among 
the tableaux, as finally amended. The follow- 
ing report of an actual incident at the ball reads 
like an extract from the account of the manner 
in which Martin Chuzzlewit "received" the 
American Sovereigns at the "National Hotel :" 



"As Boz approached, Mr. Philip Hone seized 
his hand, and said, ' My dear sir, here is a hand- 
ful of our people — right glad — bright eyes — re- 
joice — heartfelt welcome — can't express — over- 
powered — feelings — ' to all which Boz most gra- 
ciously bowed, and placed his hand upon his 
heart ; and then Mr. Hone said " Nine cheers," 
and, evidently to the astonishment of the hero 
of the extraordinary scene, the surrounding 
crowd gave utterance to nine enthusiastic 
cheers." 

" Punch " jokingly said : " We learnt, while 
having our hair cut at Truefitt's the other day 
(March, 1842), that that illustrious dealer in fic- 
titious hair had received an immense order from 
Boz, originating in his desire to gratify the sev- 
enteen thousand American young ladies who 
had honored him with applications for locks 
from his caput. Two ships have been charter- 
ed to convey the sentimental cargo, and will 
start from the London docks on the 1st day of 
April," 

Soon after his return from America we find 
Sydney Smith again in active correspondence 
with our author. Dickens had asked him to 
dinner, and Sydney Smith replied :* 

"I accept your obliging invitation condition- 
ally. If I am invited by any man of greater 
genius than yourself, or by one in whose works 
I have been more completely interested, I will 
repudiate you, and dine with the more splendid 
phenomenon of the two." 

At the end of the year, on the 10th Decem- 
ber, " The Patrician's Daughter," by Dr. West- 
land Marston, was represented at Drury Lane, 
the beautiful prologue by Dickens being admi- 
rably delivered by ]Mr. Macready. 



CHAPTER X. 

"3IAKTIN CHUZZLEWIT." 

Undeterred by the disapprobation showered 
down upon him by the Americans, on 1st Jan- 
uary, 1843, Dickens issued the first number of 
" Martin Chuzzlewit." 

If there had been any previous doubt as to 
the general feeling throughout the States, there 
was none now. No sooner had the new book 
reached America than the storm burst forth with 
great violence, and all classes were so touched 
with Dickens's satire and the fun he had made 
of them, that a writer some time since said that, 
when present at the Boston Theatre — the bui-- 
lesque of " Macbeth " being performed — all sorts 



14th May, 1842. 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS- 



43 



of worthless articles (Mexican rifles, Pensylva- 
nian bonds, etc.) were pitched into the caldron, 
in the incantation scene, but nothing provoked 
louder cheers than when the last work by Dick- 
ens was thrown in ! The American journals, 
both literary and political, all united against the 
common foe, much in the same way as they had 
united twelve years before against Mrs. Trollope 
and her "Domestic Manners of the Americans." 

In the preface to the cheap edition appearing 
in 1849, he remarked that the American por- 
tions of the book, he had been given to under- 
stand from authorities, were considered violent 
exaggerations, and that the "Water-toast Associ- 
ation and eloquence, for example, were beyond 
all bounds of belief. Nothing, however, but a 
liberal paraphrase of some reports of public 
proceedings in the United States (especially of 
the Brandywine Association), printed in the 
" Times," in June and July, 1843, had been em- 
ployed in writing Martin Chuzzlewit, and these 
formed the material complained of. "VVe may 
remark that the same "Postscript" as in that 
of "American Notes " is affixed to the ' ' Charles 
Dickens Edition " of ' ' Martin Chuzzlewit." 

Blackwood affirmed that " Pecksniff owed 
much of his celebrity, we believe, to his remark- 
able likeness to the late Sir Eobert Peel." 
"The American Publishers' Circular," in the 
summer of 1857, stating that Mr. Samuel Car- 
ter Hall was about to visit the United States, to 
deliver a series of lectures, impudently alluded 
to Mr. Hall as being "the original of Dickens's 
character," and suggested that if he (Mr. Hall) 
wished to draw well, he should advertise him- 
self as " the original Pecksniff." 

Lord Lytton, in the preface to " Night and 
Morning," says : "In this work I have sought 
to lift the mask from the timid selfishness which 
too often bears with us the name oi Respectabil- 
ity. Purposely avoiding all attraction that may 
savor of extravagance, patiently subduing every 
tone and every hue to the aspect of those whom 
we meet daily in our thoroughfares, I have 
shown in Kobert Beaufort the man of decorous 
phrase and bloodless action — the systematic self- 
server — ^in whom the world forgives the lack of 
all that is generous, warm, and noble, in order 
to respect the passive acquiescence in methodi- 
cal conventions and hollow forms. And how 
common such men are with us in this century, 
and how inviting and how necessary their de- 
lineation, may be seen in this — that the popular 
and pre-eminent Observer of the age in which 
we live has since placed their prototype in vig- 
orous colors upon imperishable canvas. Need 
I say that I allude to the 'Pecksniff' of Mr. 
Dickens ?" 



The main object of "Martin Chuzzlewit" 
was to call attention to the system of ship-hos- 
pitals, and to work-house nui'ses ; and, as types 
of the latter, Sarah Gamp, with the no less im- 
mortal, though invisible, Mrs. Harris and Bet- 
sey Prig, are inimitable. Speaking of the form- 
er, a writer said : 

" She is, with a vengeance, 
' The grave, conceited nurse, of office proud !' 

' ' coarse, greedy, inhuman, jovial — prowling 
about young wives with a leer, and old men 
with a look that would fain 'lay them out.' 
Ready at every festivity 'to put the bottle to 
her lips,' and at every calamity to squat down 
and find in it her own account of pickled salmon 
and cucumber — and crutched np in a sort of 
sham sympathy and zeal, by the perpetual 
praises administered to herself by that Eidolon, 
Mrs. Harris — there are not many things of their 
kind so living in fiction as this nightmare. 
The touch of exaggeration in her dialect is so 
skillfully distributed everywhere, that we lose 
the sense of it as we read." 

Sydney Smith, delighted at the manner in 
which the Americans were pasquinaded, sent him 
these familiar notes on the merits of the book : 

"You have been so used to such imperti- 
nences that I believe you will excuse me for 
saying how very much pleased I am with the 
first number of your new work. Pecksniff and 
his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable — quite 
fii'st-rate painting, such as no one but yourself 
can execute. 

"I did not like your genealogy of the Chuz- 
zlewits, and I must wait a little to see how 
Martin turns out. I am impatient for the next 
number. 

" Pray come and see me next summer ; and 
believe me ever yours, Sydney Smith. 

"P.S. — Chuffey is admirable. I have nev- 
er read a finer piece of writing ; it is deeply pa- 
thetic and affecting. Your last number is ex- 
cellent. Don't give yourself the trouble to an- 
swer my impertinent eulogies, only excuse 
them." 

Then, again, under date July 12th, 1843, in 
acknowledgment of a call from Dickens, and after 
the receipt of a new number of " Martin Chuz- 
zlewit," he writes : 

" Excellent ! nothing can be better ! You 
must settle it with the Americans as 3''0U can, 
but I have nothing to do with that. I have 
only to certify that the number is full of wit, 
humor, and power of description. 

"I am slowly recovering from an attack of 
the gout in the knee, and am sorry to have 
missed you." 



44 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



"Martin Chuzzlewit" was published in a 
complete form by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, and 
dedicated to Miss Burdett Coutts. Poor Tom 
Pinch claims our best sympathy ; the boy Bai- 
ley, Pecksniff and his chaste daughters, Monta- 
gue Tigg, Mark Tapley, and Mrs. Lupin, and 
the Chuzzlewits, old and young, are all admira- 
bly sketched. The American characters, Jef- 
ferson Brick (war correspondent), Scadder, Col- 
onel Diver, and Hannibal Chollop, are fine food 
for mirth. 

The most melodramatic portion is the mur- 
der of Tigg by Jonas Chuzzlewit. The disguise 
and preparation — the history of the individual 
mind of the murderer — the steps by which he 
descends — and the minute particulars which the 
over-wrought brain of Jonas catches up to use 
for his horrible purpose (witness the conversa- 
tion with the doctor), are splendid examples of 
observation and intuition, and as true as nature 
itself; and the defeat and final extirpation of 
selfishness in the heart of the hero, Martin, point 
a most valuable moi'al. The heroine is, how- 
ever, weak, and sinks into insignificance by the 
side of charming little Ruth Pinch. 

Remaining true to the resolve contained in 
his letter to the " Athenasum," the numbers 
were simultaneously published here in America 
— Messrs. Harper Brothers, by arrangement, be- 
ing furnished with a duplicate copy of each 
number, thereby enabling them to forestall the 
other American publishers. 

A good melodramatic version was produced 
at the Lyceum, Mr. Robert Keeley enacting 
Sairey Gamp ; Mr. Emery, Jonas ; Frank Mat- 
thews, Pecksniff; Miss Woolgar and Mrs. Kee- 
ley, Mercy and Bailey. 

Very recently, in March, 1868, Mr, Horace 
Wigan's adaptation at the Olympic met with 
considerable success, Mr. J. Clarke sustaining 
the part of Mrs. Gamp. 

Douglas Jerrold this summer (1843), occupy- 
ing a cottage near Heme Bay, wrote to Dickens, 
inviting him to come and see him. The follow- 
ing is an extract from his rejoinder : 

"Heme Bay. Hum! I suppose it is no 
worse than any other place in this weather; 
but it is watery, rather, isn't it ? In my mind's 
eye, I have the sea in a perpetual state of small- 
pox, and the chalk running down-hill like town 
milk. But I know the comfort of getting to 
work in a fresb place, and proposing pious proj- 
ects to one's self, and having the more substan- 
tial advantage of going to bed early, and getting 
up ditto, and walking about alone. If there 
were a fine day, I should like to deprive you of 
the last-named happiness, and take a good long 
stroll." 



During the year, at the inauguration of the 
Manchester Athenasum, he made an admirable 
speech — his longest effort up to this time — on 
the importance and usefulness of Mechanics' 
Institutes.* 

After ihe publication of "Oliver Twist" and 
"Martin Chuzzlewit," Dickens's friends were 
continually reporting to him cases of cruelty 
and hardsliip, and begging his attention thereto. 
In answer to one of these philanthropic appeals, 
Dickens wrote — he was at that time living in 
Devonshire terrace : 

" That is a very horrible case you tell me of. I 
would to God I could get at the parental lieart 

of , in which event I would so 

scarify it that he should writhe again. But if 
I were to put such a father as he into a book, all 
the fathers going (and especially the bad ones) 
would hold up their hands and protest against 
the unnatural caricature. I find that a great 
many people (particularly those who might have 
sat for the character) consider even Mr. Peck- 
sniff a grotesque impossibility; and Mrs, Nick- 
leby herself, sitting bodily before me in a solid 
chair, once asked me whether I really believed 
there was such a woman. 

"So ■ , reviewing his own case, would 

not believe in Jonas Chuzzlewit. ' I like " Oli- 
ver Twist," ' says , ' for I am fond of chil- 
dren. But the book is unnatural; for Avho 
would think of being cruel to poor little Oliver 
Twist ?' 

' ' Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my 
mind. And if I can hit him between the eyes, 
so that he shall stagger more than you or I have 
done this Christmas under the combined effects 
of punch and turkey, I will. 

"Thank you cordially for your note. Ex- 
cuse this scrap of paper. I thought it was a 
whole sheet, until I turned over,"t 

The reader will remember Maclise's beautiful 
portrait of Dickens, familiar to us all as the en- 
graved frontispiece to the large edition of 
"Nicholas Nickleby." It is the portrait of a 
literary exquisite thirty years ago ; and it is 
hard to believe that those large effeminate eyes 
sparkling from beneath flowing locks, that am- 
ple black satin scarf, with a diamond union-pin, 
and that wide velvet collar, can have any thing 
to do with the hearty, keen-eyed, sailor-like man 
whose last photographs now look at us from 
every shop- window ! But it is so ! they are 
the portraits of the same great man. Time 

* Given in Charles Dickens's Speeches, recently pub- 
lished. 

t The letter was dated "2d January, 1844." It 
was published in the "Autographic Mirror" for Feb- 
ruary, 1864. 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



45 



alone has worked the change. Of his elegant 
appearance, when young, Mr. Arthur Locker 
gives us a reminiscence : "The first time," he 
says, "I saw the idolized Boz in the flesh was 
at a Fancy Fair in the Painted Hall of Green- 
wich Hospital, held, I think, for the benefit of 
the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society. He was 
then a handsome young man, with piercing 
bright eyes and carefully arranged hair — much, 
in fact, as he is represented in Maclise's picture." 
Towards the close of this year another char- 
acteristic portrait of our author was taken by 
Miss M. Gillies ; and a fine engraving of it, by 
Armytage, appeared as a frontispiece to Home's 
"New Spirit of the Age," issued early in the 
new year. It is different to the Maclise pic- 
ture ; the hair is longer and more careless, the 
face is more thoughtful, the mouth firmer — in 
fact, there is less of the exquisite and more of 
the man about it than in the Maclise portrait 
taken four years before. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE "CHRISTMAS CAROL." 

His next work was that delightful little book 
— a better-hearted one never issued from the 
press — "A Christmas Carol, in prose; being a 
Ghost Story, of Christinas." It appeared in 
December, 1843, with some admirable illustra- 
tions by John Leech. Since the publication of 
the "Pickwick Papers," no work of Dickens's 
caused half the sensation this touching and 
beautiful little story did — it is written with 
such a hearty appreciation of Christmas, and all 
the attendant festivities indulged in at that joy- 
ous period. The description of Scrooge is won- 
derfully drawn ; his excitement in waking up 
after his interviews with the spirits, and find- 
ing it all a dream — his getting up and nearly 
cutting his nose off in shaving — buying the big 
turkey, and sending it off to Bob Cratchit, with 
a series of chuckles, and giving so handsome a 
donation to the collector — and, finally, going to 
the party at Fred's, where that fine fellow Top- 
per and the plump sister played up such grand 
tricks, and then behaving so unexpectedly to 
poor Bob the next day — follow so rapidly as al- 
most to take one's breath away with amaze- 
ment and delight ! 

If any individual story ever warmed a Christ- 
mas hearth, that was the one ; if ever solitary 
Old-Self was converted by a book, and made to 
be merry and child-like at that season " when 
its blessed Founder was himself a child," he 
surely was by that ! 



On a former page we spoke of Thackeray's 
hearty appreciation of Dickens — expressed, too, 
at a time when the "Vanity Fair" had made 
its writer's fame. It has been said that a de- 
gree of rivalry at one period existed between the 
two authors ; but few readers, we think, will be 
inclined to characterize by any such term the 
most friendly competition, after perusing this 
touching and beautiful tribute* to Mr. Dickens's 
genius from the pen of the yet unknown Michael 
Angelo Titmarsh. A box of Christmas books 
is supposed to have been sent by the editor to 
Titmarsh, in his retirement in Switzerland, 
whence the latter writes his notions of their 
contents. The last book of all is Mr, Dickens's 
" Christmas Carol " — we mean the story of old 
Scrooge — the immortal precursor of that long 
line of Christmas stories which are now so fa- 
miliar to his readers. 

" And now (says the critic) there is but one 
book left in the box, the smallest one, but oh! 
how much the best of all. It is the work of the 
master of all the English humorists now alive; 
the young man who came and took his place 
calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who 
has kept it. Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens 
since those half-dozen years ; that store- of happy 
hours that he has made us pass ; the kindly and 
pleasant companions whom he has introduced 
to us ; the harmless laughter, the generous wit, 
the frank, manly, human love which he has 
taught us to feel ! Every month of those years 
has brought us some kind token from this de- 
lightful genius. His books may have lost in 
art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait ? Since 
the days when the ' Spectator ' was produced by a 
man of kindred mind and temper, what books 
have appeared that have taken so affectionate a 

hold of the English public as these ? 

* * * * * * 

" Who can listen to objections regarding such 
a book as this ? It seems to me a national 
benefit, and, to every man or woman who reads 
it, a personal kindness. The last two people I 
heard speak of it were women ; neither knew 
the other or the author, and both said, by way 
of criticism, ' God bless him !' 

" As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage 
in the book regarding that young gentleman 
about which a man should hardly venture to 
speak in print or in public, any more than he 
would of any other affections of his private 
heart. There is not a reader in England but 
that little creature will be a bond of union be- 
tween author and him ; and he will say of 
Charles Dickens, as the women just now, ' God 

* It appeared in " Fraser's Magazine " for Jxily, 1S44. 



46 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



bless him !' What a feeling is this for a writer 
to be able to inspire, and what a reward to 
reap!" , 

Let the reader call to mind the book itself, 
and then he will appreciate the warmth and ex- 
uberance of good feeling reflected in the follow- 
ing letter to its author by Lord Jeffrey : 

"Blessings on your kind heart, my dear 
Dickens, and may it always be as full and as 
light as it is kind, and a fountain of kindness to 
all within reach of its beatings. We are all 
charmed with your ' Carol ;' chiefly, I think, 
for the genuine goodness which breathes all 
through it, and is the true inspiring angel by 
which its genius has been awakened. The 
whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream 
of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad real- 
ity, the little Tiny Tim in life and death al- 
most as sweet and as touching as Nelly. * * * 
Well, to be sure, you should be happy yourself; 
for you may be sure you have done more good, 
and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but 
prompted more positive acts of benevolence, by 
this little publication, than can be traced to all 
the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, 
1842."* 

Sydney Smith, too, a few weeks afterwards, 
wrote : "Many thanks for the ' Christmas Ca- 
rol,' which I shall immediately proceed upon, 
in preference to six American pamphlets I found 
upon my arrival, all promising immediate pay- 
ment?"! 

In a criticism in " Hood's Magazine," a simi- 
lar sentiment to that contained in Lord Jeffrey's 
letter occurs: "This book will do more to 
spread Christian feeling than ten thousand pul- 
pits!" 

And in another article the same writer — the 
kindly Thomas Hood himself — says: "It was 
a blessed inspiration that put such a book into 
the head of Charles Dickens — a happy inspira- 
tion of the heart, that warms every page. It 
is impossible to read, without a glowing bosom 
and burning cheeks, between love and shame 
for our kind, with perhaps a little touch of mis- 
giving whether we are not personally open, a 
crack or so, to the reproach of Wordsworth " — 

"'The world is too much with us, early and late, 
Getting and spending.'" 

Men of very different natures to Thomas 
Hood read of little Nell, and were touched. It 
is told of Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish ag- 
itator, that, riding with a friend one day, and 
reading the then recently issued book where the 



* Edinburgh, December 26, 1843. 
t London, February 21, 1844. 



death of Little Nell is recorded, the great ora- 
tor's eyes filled with tears, and he sobbed aloud : 

" He should not have killed her ! — he should 
not have killed her ! She was too good !" and 
so he threw the book out of the window, unable 
to read more, and indignant that the author 
should have immolated a heroine in death. 

The story was dramatized and played at sev- 
eral theatres, the Adelphi, as usual, taking the 
lead in making the tale popular. It was about 
this time that Dickens resorted to the Court of 
Chancery for an injunction against the printer 
and four publishers of " Parley's Illuminated 
Library " for piracy. 

Mr. Dickens had now two sons — the last be- 
ing born during the progress of "Martin Chuz- 
zlewit," Early in the new year it was decided 
upon christening the second boy, and the name 
Francis Jeffrey — after that of a true and tried 
friend — was determined upon. A letter of the 
latter, dated 1st February, 1844, in answer to 
the half-serious, half-jocular proposal of Dick- 
ens, says: "About that most flattering, or 
more probably passing, fancy of that dear Kate 
(Mrs. Dickens) of yours to associate my name 
with yours over the baptismal font of your new- 
come boy, my first impression was that it was 
a mere piece of kind badinage of hers (or per- 
haps your own), and not meant to be seriously 
taken, and, consequently, that it would be fool- 
ish to take any notice of it. * * * If such a 
thing be indeed in your contemplation, it would 
be more flattering and agreeable to me than 
most things which have happened to me in my 
moral pilgrimage ; while, if it was but the ex- 
pression of a happy and confiding playfulness, I 
shall still feel grateful for the communication, and 
return you a smile as cordial as your own, with 
full permission for both of you to smile at the 
simplicity which could not distinguish jest from 
earnest. * * * j ^ant amazingly to see you 
rich and independent of all irksome exertions ; 
and really if you go on having more boys (and 
naming them after poor Scotch plebeians), 
you must make good bargains and lucky hits, 
and, above all accommodate yourself oftener to 
that deeper and higher tone of human feeling, 
which, you now see experimentally, is more sure- 
ly and steadily popular than any display of 
fancy, or magical power of observation and de- 
scription combined. And so God be with you 
.and yours," etc. 

The last part of the letter alludes, no doubt, I 
to the profits of the " Christmas Carol," the sale I 
of which was very large. Jeffrey knew how ' 
few authors possessed sufficient worldly wisdom 
to keep a balance at their bankers', and gave 
his young friend a delicate hint to "be care- 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



47 



ful and save." This was not the only time 
Lord Jeffrey quietly lectured his correspondent. 
Three years later, in 1847, we get this piece of 
practical — shall we say Northern — advice? — "I 
am rather" (he writes in 1847) "disappointed 
to find your emhankment^'' (doubtlessly a fund 
of future provision) " still so small. But it is 
a great thing that you have made a beginning 
and laid a foundation, and you are young 
enough to think of living yet many years under 
the proud roof of the completed structure, which 
even I expect to see ascending in its grandeur. 
But when I consider that the public has, upon 
moderate computation, paid at least £100,000 
for your work (and had a good bargain, too, for 
the money), I think it is rather provoking to 

think that the author should not now have 

in bank, and never have received, I suspect, 
above . There must have been some mis- 
management, I think, as well as ill-luck, to 
have occasioned this result — not extravagance 
on your part, my dear Dickens, nor even excess- 
ive beneficence — but improvident arrangements 
with publishers, and too careless a control over 
their proceedings. But you are wiser now, and 
with Forster's kind and judicious help, will soon 
redeem the effect of your not ungenerous errors." 
It is not generally known that Dickens con- 
tributed an article to "Hood's Magazine " and 
" Comic Miscellany " in May, 1844. Our au- 
thor had received some kindnesses at the hands 
of the humorist, and in recognition of them he 
sent a paper entitled " Threatening Letter to 
Thomas Hood, from an Ancient Gentleman, hy 
favor of Charles Dickens,^^ to his friend's maga- 
zine. Speaking of the manner of some com- 
plaining old gentlemen, the writer of the letter 
tried to find fault with every thing modern : 

** Me. Hood. Sie, * * * Ah! governments 
were governments, and judges were judges, in 
■my day, Mr. Hood. There was no nonsense 
then. Any of your seditious complainings, and 
we were ready with the military on the shortest 
notice. We should have charged Covent Gar- 
den Theatre, sir, on a Wednesday night, at the 
point of the bayonet. Then the judges were 
full of dignity and firmness, and knew how to 
administer the law. 

"There is only one judge who knows how 
to do his duty now. He tried that revolution- 
ary female the other day, who', though she was 
in full work (making shirts at three-halfpence 
apiece), had no pride in her country, but treason- 
ably took it into her head, in the distraction of 
having been robbed of her easy earnings, to at- 
tempt to drown herself and her young child, 
and the glorious man went out of his way, sir 



— out of his "Way — to call her up for instant 
sentence of death, and to tell her she had no 
hope of mercy in this world — as you may see 
yourself if you look in the papers of Wednes- 
day, the 17th of April." 

It is curious, after this allusion to Mr. Laing, 
the notorious police magistrate — said to be the 
Fang of "Oliver Twist" — and after mention- 
ing the poor distressed needle-woman, with the 
allusion to Sir Peter Laurie, that the next article 
immediately following should be the first ap- 
pearance of Hood's exquisite " Bridge of Sighs." 
On the same page with Dickens's bitter and tell- 
ing attack upon the grumblers in power — the 
grumblers who can only see national prosperity 
in the increasing misery of the lower orders — 
there appeared those wonderful lines, commenc- 
ing— 

"One more Unfortunate, 
Weary of breath, 
Eashly importuuate, 
Gone to her death !" 

as if suggested by the poor female whom Dick- 
ens had just described as being brought before 
the magistrate for an attempt to commit sui- 
cide. 

In May, 1844, he presided at the Annual 
Conversazione of the Polytechnic Institution in 
Birmingham, and made a most telling speech. 
Writing, soon after, to Jerrold — who was very 
nervous in addressing an assembly — he said : 
" Is your modesty a confirmed habit, or could 
you prevail upon yourself, if you are moderate- 
ly well, to let me call you up for a word or 
two at the Sanatorium Dinner? There are 
some men (excellent men) connected with that 
institution, who would take the very strongest 
interest in your doing so ; and do advise me, 
one of these odd days, that if I can do it well 
and unaffectedly, I may." Jerrold overcame 
his bashfulness, and presided at the next anni- 
versary. 

A very kind and graceful act was performed 
by Dickens this year. Mr. Newby, in July, 
published, in one volume, "The Evenings of 
A Working-man. Being the Occupation of his 
Scanty Leisure, hy John Overs. With a Pref- 
ace, relating to the Author, hy Charles Dickens.^'' 
The preface is of the most charming description. 
It first mentions that Overs was a carpenter, 
who had employed his evenings in literary com- 
positions, and applied to him, as he was relin- 
quishing the editorship of "Bentley's Miscel- 
lany," for help to get his Avritings into notice. 
After some correspondence, Dickens trying to 
dissuade him from the perils of authorship, and 
a personal interview, "he wrote me," he says. 



48 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



"as manly and straightforward, but, withal, as 
modest, a letter as ever I read in my life. lie 
explained to me how limited his ambition was, 
soaring no higher than the establishment of his 
wife in some light business, and the better edu- 
cation of his children. He set before me the 
difference of his evening and holiday studies, 
such as they were, and his having no better re- 
source than an ale-house or a skittle-ground." 
Dickens accordingly consented to assist him, 
and got several of his pieces inserted in a mag- 
azine. "During this period neither hammer, 
nor plane, nor chisel had been laid aside for the 
more enticing service of the pen — literary com- 
positions had neither seduced John Overs into 
dreams nor lamentations which have damaged 
his peace of mind. 

"He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the 
man who came into my little study, for the first 
time, half a dozen years ago, after the corre- 
spondence I have mentioned. He has been very 
ill for a long period ; his disease is a severe and 
wasting affection of the lungs, which has inca- 
pacitated him these many months for every 
kind of occupation. ' If I could only do a hard 
day's work,' he said to me, the other day, ' how 
happy I should be.' 

" Having these papers by him, amongst 
others, he bethought himself that, if he could 
get a bookseller to purchase them for publica- 
tion in a volume, they would enable him to 
make some ten)porary provision for his sick 
wife and very young family. We talked tlie 
matter over together, and that it might be easier 
of accomplishment, I promised him that I would 
write an introduction to his book. 

"I would to Heaven that I could do him 
better service ; I would to Heaven it were an 
introduction to a long, and vigorous, and useful 
life. But Hope will not trim her lamp the less 
brightly for him and his because of this impulse 
to their struggling fortunes ; and trust me, read- 
er, they deseiTe her light, and need it sorely. 

"He has inscribed this book to one* whose 
skill will help him, under Providence, in all 
that human skill can do — to one who never 
could have recognized in any potentate on earth 
a higher claim to constant kindness and atten- 
tion than he has recognized in him." 

The book was eventually published at 5s., 
and was found to contain some very creditable 
writing, both prose and . verss. Overs did not 
live long enough to enjoy his popularity, for the 
malady under which he was laboring terminated 
fatally the following October. The work and 

* Dr. EUiotson. 



its author are now almost forgotten, but tiie 
generous conduct displayed towards him by 
Dickens is well deserving of remembrance. 



CHAPTER.XII. 

VISIT TO ITALY. — "THE CHIMES." 

In the summer of this year Dickens went to 
Italy. He started off with his wife, sister-in- 
law, five children, courier, nurses, etc, and a 
carriage, and had a very enjoyable holiday. 
Previous to his departure, he was entertained 
at a dinner by his friends, at the "Trafalgar," 
Gi'eenwich, on the 19th June, 1845, Lord Nor- 
manby in the chair. The following extracts 
from his epistles to Jerrold give us many pleas- 
ing bits of an autobiographical character, and at 
least show us how he enjoyed himself: 

"Come, come and see me in Italy — let us 
smoke a pipe among the vines. I have taken 
a little house surrounded by them, and no man 
in the world should be more welcome to it than 
you." 

And in another from Cremona : 

"It was very hearty and good of you, Jer- 
rold, to make that affectionate mention of the 
' Carol ' in ' Punch ;' and, I assure you, it was 
not lost upon the distant object of your manly 
regard, but touched him as you wished and 
meant it should. I wish we had not lost so much 
time in improving our personal knowledge of 
each other. But I have so steadily read you, 
and so selfishly gratified myself in always ex- 
pressing the admiration Avith which your gal- 
lant truths inspired me, that I must not call it 
lost time either." 

From the same place, in November : 

"You rather entertained the idea once of 
coming to see me at Genoa. I shall return 
straight on the 9th of December, limiting my 
stay in town to one week. Now, couldn't you 
come back with me ? The journey that way 
is very cheap, costing little more than £12, and 
I am quite sure the gratification to you would 
be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful 
place, and would put you in a painted room as 
big as a church, and much more comfortable. 
There are pens and ink upon the premises ; 
orange-trees, gardens, battledores and shuttle- 
cocks, rousing wood fires for the evenings, and 
a welcome worth having. * * * Come ! Letter 
from a gentleman in Italy to Bradbury & 
Evans in London. Letter from a gentleman 
in a country gone to sleep, to a gentleman in a 
country that would go to sleep too, and never 1 
wake again, if some people had their way. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



49 



You can work in Genoa — the house is used to 
it : it is exactly a week's post. Have that 
portmanteau looked to ; and when we meet, 
say, *I am coming I' " 

The visit to Italy often formed a subject for 
conversation with Dickens, and only a few 
weeks before his death, he told Mr. Arthur 
Locker this anecdote of his experiences there : 
"Mr. Dickens, on one occasion, visited a cer- 
tain monastery, and was conducted over the 
building by a young monk, who, though a na- 
tive of the country, spoke remarkably fluent 
English. There was, however, one peculiarity 
about his pronunciation. He frequently mis- 
placed his v's and w's. ' Have you been in 
England?' asked Mr. Dickens. 'No,' replied 
the monk, ' I have learnt my English from this 
book,' producing 'Pickwick ;' and it further ap- 
peared that he had selected Mr. Samuel Weller 
as the heau ideal o^ elegant pronunciation." 

" The Chimes : a Goblin Story of some Bells 
that rang an Old Year out and a New Year in," 
was published at the end of the year, by Messrs. 
Chapman & Hall, illustrated by Maclise, Doyle, 
Leech, and Stanfield. It was of the same size 
and price as the former Christmas book ; but, 
instead of being illustrated by Mr. Leech alone, 
several Academicians and other artists had now 
come forward with their pencils. The great 
success of the "Christmas Carol," in the pre- 
ceding year, had directed the attention of other 
authors to this class of literature, and this 
Christmas there appeared " The Snow-storm," 
by Mrs. Gore ; " The Last of the Fairies," by 
G. P. R. James ; an Irish Story, by Mr. Lever ; 
and others ; but we need hardly say Mr. Dick- 
ens distanced them all. 

Next to the "Christmas Carol," it is one of 
the most delightful little books he has written. 
Old Toby Veck, the patient, drudging ticket- 
porter, plying his vocation near the old church, 
listening to the voices of the bells, and gather- 
ing encouragement from them, is a beauti- 
fully drawn character. Meg, his daughter, a 
hopeful woman, and Richard, her sweetheart, 
are truthfully portrayed, as also Will Fern, Sir 
Joshua Bowley, Mr. Filer, and Alderman Cute. 
The plot is worked out somewhat after the plan 
of the " Christmas Carol," consisting mainly of 
a dream by Toby Veck. Every one ought to 

i be well pleased with the finale, in which Toby 
disappears from notice in a country dance to 

I the step he is so accustomed to — a Trot. 

Thomas Hood, who had written so beauti- 
fully of the "Christmas Carol," could not re- 

^ frain from expressing in print a like admiration 
for "The Chimes :"—" This," he wrote, "is 

j another of those seasonable books intended by 

4 



Boz to stir up and awaken the kindly feelings 
which are generally diffused among mankind, 
but too apt, as old Weller says, to lie ' dor- 
mouse ' in the human bosom. It is similar in 
plan to the 'Christmas Carol,' but is scarcely 
so happy in its subject — it could not be — as that 
famous Gobbling Story, with its opulence of 
good cheer, and all the Gargantuan festivity of 
that hospitable tide. The hero of the tale is one 
Toby Veck (we wish that surname had been 
more English in its sound, it seems to want an 
outlandish De or Van before it), a little old 
London ticket-porter — who does not know the 
original ? — and his humble dwelling down the 
mews, with his wooden cardboard at the door, 
with his name and occupation, and the 

^ N.B. — Messuages carefully delivei'edT 

May 'The Chimes,'" Tom Hood concludes, 
' ' be widely and wisely heard, inculcating their 
wholesome lessons of charity and forbearance, 
reminding wealth of the claims of want — the 
feasting of the fasting, and inducing them to 
spare something for an aching void from their 
comfortable repletion." 

Having alluded to the administration of the 
law by Mr. Laing, the Clerkenwell magistrate, 
in "Oliver Twist," under the character of Mr. 
Fang, likewise to the notorious Sir Peter Lau- 
rie, in "The Chimes," as Alderman Cute, the 
talk about "putting down " various little wants, 
cares, and troubles of the poor being merely a 
transcript of what the garrulous old City mag- 
istrate had said from the bench, "Particularly 
well," says one who had heard him, "do we 
recollect a promise made by that officious per- 
sonage, ' dressed in a little brief authority,' to a 
starved and maddened woman, who had at- 
tempted to drown herself, that he (Sir Peter 
Laurie) would jozif doivn suicide P^ The alder- 
man did not forget the attack made upon him, 
and when he found an opportunity, which he 
did shortly, ridiculed Mr. Dickens's description 
of Jacob's Island in " Oliver Twist," and de- 
nied in full court the existence, as described, 
of that locality, and of the Folly Ditch ; but 
the author was again too strong for the alder- 
man, and in his preface to the new edition of 
the tale he incidentally mentions the fact, and 
denies, in his turn, the existence of Sir Peter 
Laurie ! 

JeiTold, we may remark, under the initial of 
" Q," often scarified the alderman in the pages 
of "Punch." 

As a drama "The Chimes" became very 
popular, the Adelphi performing on 19th De- 
cember a version adapted with some skill by 
Messrs. Mark Lemon and Gilbert A'Beckett, 



50 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



Mr. Wright sustaining the part of Alderman 
Cute, and Paul Bedford Sir Joshua Bowley. 
The Lyceum had an admirable dramatic version, 
Mr. Keeley's Toby Veck being a most life-like 
portrait of Dickens's happy original. 

Writing from Milan, in November, 1844, to 
the Countess of Blessington, we learn how this 
beautiful little work was composed : 

" Since I heard from Count D'Orsay, I have 
been beset in I don't know how many ways. 
First of all, I went to Marseilles, and came back 
to Genoa. Then I went to the Pescliiere. 
Then some people who had been present at the 
Scientific Congress here, made a sudden inroad 
on that establishment and overran it. Tben 
they went away, and I shut myself up for one 
month, close and tight, over my little Christmas 
book, 'The Chimes.' All my affections and 
passions got twined and knotted in it, and I be- 
came as haggard as a murderer, long before I 
had wrote ' The End.' When I had done that, 
like ' The man of Thessaly,' who having scratch- 
ed his eyes out in a quickset hedge, plunged 
into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again, I 
fled to Venice, to recover the composure I liad 
disturbed. From thence I went to Verona and 
to Mantua. And now I am here — just come 
up from underground, and earthy all over, from 
seeing that extraordinary tomb in which the 
Dead Saint lies in an alabaster case, with spark- 
ling jewels all about him to mock his dusty eyes, 
not to mention the twenty-franc pieces which 
devout votaries were ringing down upon a sort 
of skylight in the Cathedral pavement above, as 
ifitwerethecounter of his Heavenly shop. * * * 

Old ■ is a trifle uglier than when I first 

arrived. He has periodical parties, at which 
there are a great many flower-pots and a few 
ices — no other refreshments. He goes about 
continually with extemporaneous poetry ; and is 
always ready, like tavern- dinners, on the short- 
est notice and the most reasonable terms. He 
keeps a gigantic harp in his bedroom, together 
with pen, ink, and paper, for fixing his ideas as 
they flow — a kind of profane King David, truly 
good-natured and very harmless. Pray say to 
Count D'Orsay every thing that is cordial and 
loving from me. The travelling-purse he gave 
me has been of immense service. It has been 
constantly opened. All Italy seems to yearn 
to put its hand into it. I think of hanging 
it, when I come back to England, on a nail 
as a trophy, and of gashing the brim like the 
blade of an old sword, and saying to my son 
and heir, as they do upon the stage : 'You see 
this notch, boy? Five hundred francs were 
laid low on that day for post-horses. Where 
this gap is, a waiter charged your father treble 



the correct amount — and got it. This end, 
worn into teeth like the rasped edge of an old 
file, is sacred to the Custom Houses, boy, the 
passports, and the shabby soldiers at town 
gates, who put an open hand and a dirty coat- 
cuff into the windows of all Forestieri. Take 
it, boy. Thy father has nothing else to give !' 
My desk is cooling itself in a mail-coach, some- 
where down at the back of the cathedral, and 
the pens and ink in this house are so detestable, 
that I have no hope of your ever getting to this 
portion of my letter. But I have the less misery 
in this state of mind, from knowing that it has 
nothing in it to repay you for the trouble of 
perusal." 

During the early part of the year 1845 Dick- 
ens remained on the Continent. He was in 
London, however, in the summer, making ar- 
rangements for new books, and other ventures — 
amongst them a new daily paper, of the most 
liberal principles — for the coming autumn sea- 
son. 

CHAPTER XIII, 

DICKENS AS AN ACTOK. 

It has been vej-y generally stated that it was 
at the close of this year that our author made 
his first appearance as an actor upon a public 
stage. This is not correct. Dickens's extreme 
fondness for theatricals had tempted him, as far 
back as the year 1836, when "Pickwick " was 
publishing, to take a part in "The Strange 
Gentleman," at St. James's Theatre. The ama- 
teur actor was not successful on this occasion, 
and we believe no further attempt — except 
drawing-room performances — was made until 
the autumn of 1845, when he made another ap- 
pearance on the stage at the St. James's Theatre, 
on the 19th of September, the play selected be- 
ing Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humor;" 
the various parts of the amateur performance 
being taken by literary and artistic celebrities. 
The triumph achieved was immense. They 
were induced to repeat the performance for a 
Charity, at the same theatre, on the 15th of 
November following, the only alteration being 
the substitution of a Mr. Eaton for Mr. A'Beckett 
as William. The playbill itself is a curiosity : 

A Strictly Private Amateur Performance 

At the St. James's Theatre 

(By favor of Mr. Mitchell). Will be performed Ben 
Jonson's Comedy of 

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR. 

CnAEACTEES : 

Knowell Henbt Mayhew. 

Edward Knowell Feedeeick Dickens. 



J 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



51 



Brainworm Mabk Lemon. 

George Downright Dudley Costello. 

Wellbred Geoege Catteemole. 

KitellJ JOUN FOKSTEB. 

Captain Bohadil Chakles DICKE^'S. 

Master Stephen DorGLAS Jeeeold. 

Master Matheic John Leech. 

Tho'inas Cash Augustus Dickens. 

Oliver Cob Pescival Leigh. 

Justice Clement Feank Stone. 

Boger Formal ."^Ir. Etans. 

WiUiam W. Eaton. 

James W. B. Jeerold. 

Dame Kitehj Miss Foetesque. 

Mistress Bridget Miss Hinton. 

Tib Miss Bew. 



To conclude with a Farce, in One Act, called 
TWO O'CLOCK IX THE MORNING. 

OHAEACTEES : 

Mr. Snobbington Mr. Chaeles Dickens. 

The Stranger Mr. Maek Lemon. 

Previous to the Play, the Overture to "William 
Tell." Previous to the Farce, the Overture to "La 
Gazza Ladra." 

His Eoyal Highness Prince Albert has been pleased 
to express his intention to honor the performance 
with his presence. 

Ben Jonson, as an acting dramatist, has al- 
most disappeared from the stage he so long 
adorned, and, probably, no performance of his 
best comedy was ever more successful than the 
above. Dickens made such an admirable Cap- 
tain Bobadil, that Leslie, the Royal Academi- 
cian, took a most characteristic portrait of him in 
that character. The moment selected is when 
the Captain shouts out — 

"A gentleman ! odds so, I am not Avithin." 

Act i.. Scene 3. 

Mr. Mitchell, of Bond Street, published a fine 
lithograph of the picture, and collectors of the 
deceased novelist's portraits will do well to se- 
cure a copy. For beauty of portraiture and 
character there is nothing like it. It is also 
very interesting, as coming between the beauti- 
ful but effeminate portrait of Maclise and the 
photograph of our own day, because it shows the 
change that was coming over his features, when 
deep thought and firmness of purpose were be- 
ginning to leave their marks behind them. 

But to return to Dickens as an actor, a friend 
says : 

"Analogous to his powers as a reader were 
his abilities as an actor ; and it has been said of 
him with truth that, with perhaps the exception 
of Frederick Lemaitre in his best days, there 
was no one who could excel Charles Dickens in 
purely dramatic representation. Those who saw 
the character of the light-house-keeper in Mr. 
\Vilkie Collins's drama, as portrayed first by 



Mr. Dickens and then by Mr. Robson, were 
enabled to judge of the wonderful superiority 
of the rendering given by the former. And 
not merely as an actor, but as a stage director, 
were his talents pre-eminent ; not merely did he 
play his own part to perfection, but he taught 
every one else in his little company how to play 
theirs; he would devise scenery with Stanfield 
and Telbin, take a practical share in the stage 
carpentry, write out the copy for the playbill, 
and in every way thoroughly earn the title of 
'Mr. Crummies,' with which he was always 
affectionately greeted on these occasions." 

At the time of which we are writing, Dickens 
was full of enthusiasm for the stage, and being 
appealed to by Jerrold for an opinion on his 
drama of "Time Works "Wonders," he wrote to 
his friend : " I am greatly struck by the whole 
idea of the piece. The elopement in the begin- 
ning, and the consequences that flow from it, 
and their delicate and masterly exposition, are 
of the freshest, truest, and most vigorous kind ; 
especially the characters — especially the gov- 
erness, among the best I know ; and the wit 
and the wisdom of it are never asunder. I 
could almost find it in my heart to sit down 
and write you a long letter on the subject of 
this play, but I won't. I will only thank you 
for it heartily, and add that I agree with you 
in thinking it incomparably the best of your 
dramatic writings." 

During the summer and autumn of this year 
Mr. Dickens finished his new Christmas book, 
"The Cricket on the Hearth (a Fairy Tale of 
Home) ; printed and published for the Author" 
by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, illustrated by 
Leech, Stanfield, and Maclise, and dedicated to 
Lord Jeffrey. Next to the " Christmas Carol" 
■ and the " Chimes," this is a great favorite. 
The quaint way in w^hich it opens, giving an 
eloquent picture of homely and domestic com- 
, fort in the English carriers house, the constrnc- 
I tion of the plot, and the glorious denouement, 
, make the book one of his best and heartiest 
i efforts. Tilly Slowboy, the great clumsy nurse- 
girl, is very charmingly portrayed, her especial 
forte being to hold the baby topsy-turvy, and 
entertain it with dialogues, consisting mainly of 
scraps from conversations she hears, with all the 
nouns turned into plurals. 

The Lyceum was first in the field (21st De- 
cember) with a dramatic ada])tation by Mr. Al- 
bert Smith, Miss Mary Keelcy impersonating 
Bertha ; Mr. Keeley, Caleb ; Mrs. Keeley, Mrs. 
Peerybingle ; and Mr. Emery, John, the honest 
carrier. Under jNIrs. Keeley's management it 
proved an extraordinary success. 

On 6th January following, Mr. Webster's ver- 



52 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



sion of the story was placed on the Haymarket 
boards, with this strong cast : 

John Peerybingle Mr. Webstee. 

Tackleton Mr. Tilijdky. 

Caleb Mr. Faeren. 

Mrs. Peerybingle Miss Fortesque. 

Bertha Mrs. Seymour, 

Tilly Slowboy Mr. Buckstone. 

At the Adelphi, 0' Smith represented Mr. 
Peerybingle ; Wright, Tilly Slowboy ; and the 
celebrated Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Dot. At the City 
of London Theatre, too, an adaptation was per- 
formed with considerable ability. In the be- 
ginning of 1862, Mr. Boucicault's adaptation, 
under the title of " Dot," played at the Adelphi, 
proved a great triumph, Mr. J. L. Toole sustain- 
ing the part of Caleb. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

DICKENS AS A JOURNALIST. 

We have previously alluded to the fact that 
Mr. Dickens had for some time past been think- 
ing of connecting himself with a new daily pa- 
per which was to appear early in the new year. 
The idea was well taken up. Money was free- 
ly spent by the various shareholders, and many 
advertisements told the public that a newspa- 
per, which should supply every thing in the 
first style of newspaper talent, would be publish- 
ed at the price of twopence-halfpenny. The 
name chosen was the "Daily News," and Mr. 
Dickens was widely advertised as ' ' the head 
of the literary department." Expectation was 
raised to a high pitch by this announcement ; 
and in 1846, on the 21st of January, the first 
number appeared. The new journal, however, 
did not prove so successful as was expected. 
The staffs of other papers had been long organ- 
ized, their expenses — of course immense — were 
well and judiciously controlled, and the arrange- 
ments complete. All these things were new to 
the "Daily News," and the expenses entered 
into did not render it possible, with the circu- 
lation it had then reached, to sell the paper at 
the original price ; and it was shortly after 
raised to threepence, and finally to the same 
price as the " Times." 

Very recently, and only a few days after the 
death of the great novelist, the paper here al- 
luded to gave this account of his connection 
with the journal : 

" Some of our readers may not be aware that 
the 'Pictures from Italy,' which are now in- 
cluded in all editions of Charles Dickens's 
works, were originally contributed to this news- 



paper, and that its early numbers were brought 
out under his editorship. In the first number 
of this journal, in the ' Daily News ' of January 
21, 1846, appeared No. 1 of ' Travelling Letters, 
written on the Road, by Charles Dickens.' In 
the 'Daily News' of February 14th, of the 
same year, Mr. Dickens wrote the following 
verses — which will be new to many — elicited by 
a speech at one of the night meetings of the 
wives of agricultural laborers in Wiltshire, held 
to petition for free-trade : 

THE HYMN OF THE WILTSHIRE LABORERS. 

" Don't you all think that we have a great need to cry to our God 
to put it in the hearts of our greaseous Queen and her members of 
Parlerment to grant us free bread I" — Lucy Simpki.vs, at Brim Hill. 

O God, who by Thy Prophet's hand 

Didst smite the rocky brake, 
Whence water came at Thy command, 

Thy people's thirst to slake : 
Strike, now, upon this granite wall, 

Stern, obdurate, and high ; 
And let some drops of pity fall 

For us who starve and die ! 

The God, who took a little child 

And set him in the midst, 
And promised him His mercy mild, 

As, by Thy Son, Thou didst : 
Look down upon our children dear, 

So gaunt, so cold, so spare, 
And let their images appear 

Where Lords and Gentry are! 

O God, teach them to feel how we, 

When our poor infants droop, j. 

Are weakened in our trust in Thee, m 

And how our spirits stoop: 
For, in Thy rest, so bright and fair, 

All tears and sorrows sleep ; 
And their young looks, so full of care, 

Would make Thine angels weep I 

The God, who with His finger drew 

The Judgment coming on, 
Write for these men, what must ensue, 

Ere many years be gone ! 
O God, whose bow is in the sky, 

Let them not brave and dare, 
Until they look (too late) on high 

And see an Arrow there ! 

O God, remind them, in the bread 

They break upon the knee, 
These sacred words may yet be read, 

" In memory of Me !" 
O God, remind them of His sweet 

Compassion for the poor. 
And how He gave them Bread to eat, 

And went from door to door. 

Chaeles Dickens. 

" There is the true ring in these lines. They 
have the note which Dickens sounded consistent- 
ly through life of right against might ; the note 
which found expression in the Anti-Corn Law 
agitation, in the protests against workhouse 
enormities, in the raid against those eccentrici- 
ties in legislation which are anomalies to the 
rich and bitter hardships to the poor. Let the 
reader remark how consistently the weekly peri- 



J 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



53 



odicals which Mr. Dickens has guided have taken 
this side, and how the many pens employed on 
them have taken this side whenever political or 
social subjects have been discussed, and he will 
understand that the author was not a mere jester 
and story-teller, but a true philanthropist and 
reformer."* 

Dickens's friends very soon saw that he had 
taken a false step. The duties of a daily po- 
litical paper were not suitable to him, and be- 
fore many months he relinquished the editor- 
ship, and retired from participation in the 
" Daily News " — but not, it is understood, 
without a considerable loss in money. His 
place was then filled by Mr. John Forster, the 
able editor of the "Examiner," and friend — 
and at that time the champion — of Mr. Mac- 
ready. For many years previously Dickens 
had been on the friendliest terms with the au- 
thor of the delightful " Life of Goldsmith," and 
this intimacy was maintained to the close of our 
author's life, and in his will Mr. Forster has 
been appointed principal executor. After the 
"Pictures "had appeared in the '* Daily News," 
they were collected and printed and published 
for the author, in May, 1846, by his new pub- 
lishers, Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. Both this 
work and "The Cricket on the Hearth" may 
be regarded as the speculations of Mr. Dick- 
ens in attempting publishing on his own ac- 
count. No further works written by him have 
been, we believe, "printed and published for 
the author." The book did not meet with that 
hearty applause which had been given to his 
previous works. 

About this time there are evidences that Dick- 
ens was planning another novel, to be issued in 
the old familiar green covers. Two years had 
elapsed since the completion of "Martin Chuz- 
zlewit," and we now find him writing to his 
friend, the Countess of Blessington, about a 
"new book" — which new work must have been 
"Dombey and Son," that appeared in the fol- 
lowing year : "Vague thoughts of a new book 
are rife within me ji st now ; and I go wander- 
ing about at night into the strangest places, ac- 
cording to my usual propensity at such a time, 
seeking rest, and finding none. As an addition 
to my composure, I ran over a little dog in the 
Regent's Park, yestefday (killing him on the 
spot), and gave his little mistress such exquisite 
distress as 1 never saw the like of. I must have 
some talk with you about those American sing- 
ers.f They must never go back to their own 
country without your having heard them sing 



* " The Daily News," 11th June, 18T0. 
t The Hutchiusou family, probably. 



Hood's ' Bridge of Sighs.' My God ! how sor- 
rowful and pitiful it is !" 

Writing to Jerrold, also, before his departure 
to Switzerland, he incidentally speaks of the 
work he is engaged upon: 

^' I wish you would seriously consider the ex- 
pediency and feasibility of coming to Lausanne 
in the summer or early autumn. I must be at 
work myself during a certain part of every day 
almost, and you could do twice as much there 
as here. It is a wonderful place to see; and 
what sort of welcome you will find I will say 
nothing about, for I have vanity enough to be- 
lieve that you would be willing to feel yourself 
as much at home in my household as in any 
man's." Arriving^at Lausanne, he writes that 
he will be ready to accommodate him in June, 
and goes on: "We are established here, in a 
perfect doll's house, which could be put bodily 
into the hall of ourltalian palazzo ; but it is the 
most lovely and delicious situation imaginable, 
and there is a spare bedroom, wherein we could 
make you as comfortable as need be. Bov/ers 
of roses for cigar smoking, arbors for cool 
punch-drinking, mountain and Tyrolean coun- 
tries close at hand, piied-up Alps before the 
windows^ etc.,. etc., etc." 



CHAPTER XV. 

APPEARANCE OP " DOMBET AND SON." 

On the 1st October, the first number of 
' ' Dombey and Son " was issued by Messrs. 
Bradbury & Evans, illustrated by Phiz. It 
ran the usual twenty numbers, and on its com- 
pletion was dedicated to the Marchioness of 
Normanby. 

This is, perhaps, one of his least popular 
novels. The descriptions of high life are some- 
what forced and overdrawn. Dombey is a man 
thoroughly to be detested — cruel, stern, and un- 
bending. Little Paul and Captain Cuttle are 
the two best characters in the book, which con- 
tains many others excessively diverting. Mr. 
Toots, with his mania for writing confidential 
letters to himself from great and eminent men, 
and his penchant for Messrs. Burgess & Co., 
the celebrated tailors ; Perch, the messenger, 
and father of a large family ; the awful Mrs. 
MacStinger, Susan Nipper, Major Joe Bagstock, 
Miss Floy, etc. 

In " Dombey " Dickens has evidently endeav- 
ored to describe a certain phase of " high life," 
and he has done so with much success. The 
chai'acter of the aristocratic Cousin Feenix is 
finished and natural. 



54 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



It may just be mentioned that Hablot K. 
Browne (Phiz), with Mr. Dickens's sanction, 
published some additional designs — full-length 
portraits of the characters contained in the 
novel. 

While the story was progressing, an enter- 
prising publisher, in January, 1847, started in 
weekly penny numbers " Dombey and Daugh- 
ter," coolly announcing its appearance thus : 

" This work is from the pen of one of the first Peri- 
odical Writers of the day ; and is, in literary merit 
(although so low in price), no way inferior to Mr. 
Dickens's admirable work, ' Dombey and Son.' Those 
who are reading 'Dombey and Son' should most as- 
suredly order ' Dombey and Daughter ;' it is a produc- 
tion of exalted intellect, written to sustain moral ex- 
ample and virtuous precept— deeply to interest, and 
sagely to instruct. 

" Order of any Bookseller or Newsvender— One Pen- 
ny will test the truth of this announcement." 

The public thought differently, and nothing 
furtlicr was heard of the work. 

Early in 1847, in a letter to Lady Blessing- 
ton, Dickens wrote : "I begin to doubt whether 
I had any thing to do with a book called ' Dom- 
bey,' or ever sat over number five (not finished 
a fortnight yet), day after day, until I half be- 
gan, like the monk in poor Wilkie's story, to 
think it the only reality in life, and to mistake 
all the realities for short-lived shadows."* 

In the preface to the new edition in 1858, is 
this note: " I began this book by the Lake of 
Geneva, and went on with it for some months 
in France. The association between the writ- 
ing and the place of writing :s so curiously strong 
in my mind, that at this day, although I know 
every stair in the little midshipman's house, and 
could swear to every pew in the church in which 
Florence was married, or to every young gentle- 
man's bedstead in Doctor Blimber's establish- 
ment, I yet confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle 
as secluding himself from Mrs. MacStinger 
among the mountains of Switzerland. Simi- 
larly, when I am reminded by any chance of 
what it was that the waves were always saying, 
I wander in my fancy for a whole winter night 
about the streets of Paiis — as I really did, with 
a heavy heart, on the night when my little friend 
and I parted company forever, "f 



* It may be remembered how this same beautiful 
story of Wilkie's was differently applied by Mr. Dick- 
ens, in the last speech he ever made at the Royal 
Academy dinner. 

t The Philadelphia " Morning Post " says :— Dick- 
ens, while in this city, was very anxious to purchase 
Mr. James Hamilton's painting entitled " What are the 
Wild Waves Saying ?" But as this beaittifal work, 
one of the artist's best, was already sold, Mr. Dickens 
requested that he might see the original sketch, with 
which he was so greatly pleased that he insisted upon 
buying it. Mr. Hamilton refused to sell the picture, 
but presented it to Mr. Dickens. The other day the 



Lord Cockburn, in a letter under date 31st of 
January, 1847, wrote to the author : 

" Oh, my dear, dear Dickens ! What a No. r> 
you have given us ! I have so cried and sobbed 
over it last night, and again this morning ; and 
felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed 
and loved you for making me shed them ; and 
I never can bless and love you enough. Since 
that divine Nelly was found in her humble 
couch, beneath the snow and ivy, there has 
been nothing like the actual dying of that 
sweet Paul, in the summershine of that lofty 
room." 

A high medical authority assures us, that in 
the author's description of the last illness of 
Mrs. Skewton, he actually anticipated the clinic- 
al researches of M. Dax, Broca, and Hughlings 
Jackson, on the connection of right hemiplegia 
with asphasia. 

The story was cleverly dramatized and well 
represented at the Marylebone Theatre, in June, 
1849, and its success was in proportion to its 
merits. 

In the spring of 184G, on April 6th, the first 
Anniversary Festival of the General Theatrical 
Fund Association was held at the London Tav- 
ern. Dickens was in the chair, and made some 
admirable hits in his most effective speech, as i 
when he said, in speaking of the " base uses" 
to which the two great theatres were then being 
applied: "Covent Garden is now but a vision 
of the past. You might play the bottle conjurer 
with its dramatic company, and put them all into 
a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard 
witliin its walls, save in connection with corn, 
or the ambidextrous prestidigitation of the Wiz- 
ard of the North. In like manner, Drury Lane 
is conducted now with almost a sole view to the 
opera and ballet, insomuch that the statue of 
Shakspeare over the door serves as emphatically 
to point out his grave as his bust did in the church 
of Stratford-upon-Avon." 

What, too, can be happier than his pleadings 
for the poor actor : " Hazlitt has well said that 
' There is no class of society whom so many per- 
sons regard with affection as actors. We greet 
them on the stage, we like to meet them in the 
streets ; they almost always recall to us pleasant 
associations.' When they have strutted and 
fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not 



artist received from Mr. Dickens an exquisite edition 
of his novels, accompanied by the following auto- 
graph :—" Gad's-hill Place, Higham by Rochester, 
Kent, Monday, Twenty-fifth May, 1S68, to Mr. James 
Hamilton, this set of my books, with thanks and re- 
gard.— Charles Dickens." It is certain that Charles 
Dickens's genius never suggested a more imaginative 
picture than this masterpiece, and his appreciation of 
Hamilton could not have been more delicately shown. 



LIFE OE CHARLES DICKENS. 



55 



be heard no more — ^but let them be heard some- 
times to say that they are happy in their old age. 
When they have passed for the last time from 
behind that glittering row of lights with which 
we are all familiar, let them not pass away into 
gloom and darkness — but let them pass into 
cheerfulness and light — into a contented and 
happy home.'"* 

"Writing to Jerrold from Geneva, in Novem- 
ber, 18i6, he says : " This day week I finished 
my little Christmas book (writing towards the 
close the exact words of a passage in your affec- 
tionate letter, t received this morning; to wit, 
'After all, life has something serious in it') ; 
and ran over here for a week's rest. I can not 
tell you how much true gratification I have had 
in your most hearty letter. Eorster told me that 
the same spirit breathed through a notice of 
' Dombey ' in your paper ; and I have been say- 
ing since to K. an(i G., that there is no such 
good way of testing the worth of a literary 
friendship as by comparing its influence on 
one's mind with any that literary animosity can 
produce, Mr. W. will throw me into a violent 
fit of anger for the moment, it is true ; but his 
acts and deeds pass into the death of all bad 
things next day, and rot out of my memory; 
whereas a generous sympathy like yours is ever 
present to me, ever fresh and new to me — always 
stimulating, cheerful, and delightful. The pain 
of unjust malice is lost in an hour. The pleas- 
ure of a generous friendship is the steadiest joy 
in the world. What a glorious and comfortable 
thing that is to think of! 

" No, I don't get the paper j regularly. To 
the best of my recollection, I have not had more 
than three numbers — certainly not more than 
four. But I knew how busy you must be, and 
had no expectation of hearing from you until I 
wrote from Paris (as I intended doing), and im- 
plored you to come and make merry with us 
there. I am truly pleased to receive your good 
account of that enterprise * * * j have had 

great success again in magnetism. E , who 

has been with us for a week or so, holds my 
magnetic powers in great veneration, and I 
really think they are, by some conjunction of 

* Given entire in "The Speeches of Charles Dick- 
ens." 

t Jerrold, in the letter referred to by Dickens, had 
said (in deprecating Gilbert A'Beckett's "Comic His- 
tory of England") : "After all, life has something seri- 
ous in it. It can not be all a comic history of human- 
ity. Some men would, I believe, wi-ite the Comic 
Sermon on the Mount. Think of a Comic History of 
England ; the drollery of Alfred ; the fnn of Sir Thom- 
as More iu the Tower : the farce of his daughter beg- 
ging the dead head, and clasping it in her coffin, on 
her bosom. Surely the world will be sick of this blas- 
phemy." 

i Douglas Jerrold's "Weekly Newspaper." 



chances, strong. Let them, or something else, 
hold you to me by the heart." 

"The Battle of Life (a Love Story) " was the 
Christmas book referred to in the beginning of 
the foregoing letter. Messrs. Bradbury & Evans 
were the publishers, and Maclise, Leech, Stan- 
field, and Doyle the illustrators. It was a great 
favorite, and enjoyed considerable popularity, 
on account of its poetical tendency. 

Clemency Newcome is a spiritedly drawn and 
well-conceived character, as are Messrs. Snitch- 
ley and Craggs, the solicitors. Dr. Jeddler, his 
daughters, Heathfield, and Michael Warden, 
they all displaying considerable care and pains- 
taking in their treatment. Benjamin Britain, 
sometimes called Little Britain, to distinguish 
him from Great, is an oddity. He expresses 
himself in a conversation to this effect: "I 
don't know any thing, I don't care for any 
thing, I don't make out any thing, I don't be- 
lieve any thing, and I don't want any thing." 

The Lyceum reopened on the 21st December, 
with a dramatic version of the story by Albert 
Smith — Clemency JSfewcomhe sustained by Mrs. 
Keeley ; Benjamin Britain, by Mr. Keeley ; 
Alfred Heathjleld, Leigh JMurray ; and Doctor 
Jeddler, Mr. Frank Matthews. At Astley's 
Theatre, in March, 1867, a clever adaptation 
was performed, and ran a considerable time. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

VICTOR HUGO. — THE HAUNTED MAN. 

From Paris, early in 1847, our author writes 
to Lady Blessington, describing his visit to 
Victor Hugo, then residing in the French cap- 
ital. Twelve months after this, the great 
French novelist had to fly. The coup d'etat 
brought about a new order of things : 

" We were (writes Dickens) at V. H.'s honse 
last Sunday week — a most extraordinary place, 
something like an old curiosity-shop, or the 
property-room of some gloomy, vast old theatre. 
I was much struck by H. himself, who looks 
like a genius — he is, every inch of him, and is 
very interesting and satisfactory from head to 
foot. His wife is a handsome woman, with 
flashing black eyes. There is also a charming 
ditto daughter, of fifteen or sixteen, with ditto 
eyes. Sitting among old armor and old tap- 
estry, and old coffers, and grim old chairs and 
tables, and old canopies of state from old pal- 
aces, and old golden lions going to play at skit- 
tles with ponderous old golden balls, that made 
a most romantic show, and looked like a chap- 
ter out of one of his own books." 



56 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



The letter is most interesting in a double 
sense. It shows us Victor Hugo's tastes in 
decoration, and those objects in his house upon 
which his eye would continually rest, and 
which would help to form drapery and literary 
illustration for his fictions ; and it shows us in 
an oblique manner what were Dickens's notions 
in these matters, and the sympathy — if any — in 
such surroundings, between the two men. 

During this year an announcement appeared 
that Shakspeare's house at Stratford-upon-Avon 
was to be sold. A public meeting was held, 
and a committee organized. By subscriptions, 
and a grand performance at Covent Garden 
Theatre, on 7th December — all the principal 
actors and actresses taking part therein — and 
readings by Macready, prior to his retirement, 
a sufficient sum (£3000) was realized. 

To provide for the proper care and custody 
of the house and its relics, a series of amateur 
entertainments were given. Messrs. Charles 
Knight, Peter Cunningham, and John Payne 
Collier were the Directors of the General Man- 
agement, and Dickens the Stage Manager. 

The first performance took place at the Hay- 
market Theatre on May 15, 1848, the play se- 
lected being "The Merry Wives of Windsor," 
with the following cast : 

Sir John Falstaf Mr. Maek Lemon. 

Fenton Mr. Ciiakles Ro.meb. 

Shallow Mr. Cuarles Diokens. 

Slender Mr. John Leecu. 

Mr. Ford Mr. Fokster. 

Mr. Page Mr. Frank Stone. 

Sir Hugh Evans Mr. G. H. Lewes. 

Dr. Caiiis Mr. Dudley Costello. 

Host of the Garter Inn Mr. Feedk. Dickens. 

Bardolph Mr. Cole. 

Pistol Mr. Geo. Ceuiksiiank. 

Nym Mr. Augustus Dickens. 

Robin .'.Miss Robins. 

Simple Mr. Augustus Egg. 

Rugby Mr. Eaton. 

Mrs. Ford Miss Fortesque. 

Mrs. Page Miss Kenwoetuy. 

Mrs. Anne Page Miss Anne Eomee. 

Mrs. Quickly Mrs. Cowden Claeke. 

Towards the close of the year 1847 he was in- 
vited by the good people of Leeds to attend a 
soiree at their Mechanics' Institution.* One 
clause of his speech was in his most character- 
istic manner. He is speaking of a class of pol- 
iticians who object to educate the lower orders 
any more than up to a certain point, because 
" knowledge is power : ' 

"I never heard but one tangible position 
taken against educational establishments for the 
people, and that was, that in this or that in- 
stance, or in these or those instances, education 
for the people has failed. And I have never 

* December, 1847. 



traced even this to its source but I have found 
that the term education, so employed, meant 
any thing but education — im])lied the mere im- 
perfect application of old, ignorant, preposterous 
spelling-book lessons to the meanest purposes — 
as if you should teach achild that there is no 
higher end in electricity, for example, than ex- 
pressly to strike a mutton-})ie out of the hand 
of a greedy boy — and on which it is as unrea- 
sonable to found an objection to education in a 
comprehensive sense, as it would be to object al- 
together to the combing of youthful hair, be- 
cause in a certain charity-school they had a 
practice of combing it into the pupils' eyes." 

" Dombey and Son " interfering with his ar- 
rangements, the Christmas of 1847 passed with- 
out the usual appearance of a separate story, but 
the ensuing Christmas "The Haunted Man, and 
the Ghost's Bargain " was published by Messrs. 
Bradbury & Evans, This^s perhaps his least 
popular little book, although considerable skill 
and vigorous writing are apparent. Redlaw, 
the Haunted Man, is a creation of sad and 
sombre hue. The most genial parts are the 
accounts of Tetterby, the struggling news-ven- 
der, and his family, not forgetting Johnny, and 
the Moloch baby, Sally. 

In a little sketch of Mr. Dickens which ap- 
peared many years ago, it is said : "If stories 
told by booksellers of extraordinary sales be 
true, this last Christmas volume met with quite 
as much favor as any of the rest. But some- 
how, when it was read, it did not please. The 
' Haunted Man ' did not long haunt our mem- 
ories. It had a peculiar purpose, opposed to the 
first part of the old saw, 'Forget and forgive.' 
This extract will place before us the moral of 
the tale : 

" 'I have no learning,' said Milly, 'and you 
have much ; I am not used to think, and you 
are always thinking. May I tell you why it • 
seems to me a good thing to remember wrong 
that has been done us?' 

" ' Yes.' 

" ' That we may forgive it.' 

" 'Pardon me, great Heaven,' said Redlaw, . 
lifting up his eyes, ' for having thrown away 
thine own attribute !' 

' ' ' And if,' said Milly, ' if your own memory 
should one day be restored, as we will hope and 
pray it may be, would it not be a blessing to you 
to recall at once a wrong and its forgiveness ?' 

"Alas for human nature, how few can do 
this!" 

Happy he from whose memory wrong is quick- 
ly effaced ; and unfortunate that mind which, 
in recalling an injury, feels again the poignancy 
of the wound. We fear that forgiveness, or what 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



5T 



looks like it, the absence of rancor, often comes 
through forgetfulness. We fear that it ever 
must be so ; that few will remember vividly, 
and forgive perfectly. In ordinary minds, then, 
forgetfulness and forgiveness will be compan- 
ions, and for them the old motto is a good one ; 
but it is the highest part of the highest creed, to 
forgive before memory sleeps, and ever to re- 
member how the good overcame the evil. 

It has been remarked that the illustrious nov- 
elist has curiously mistaken the legend of the old 
portrait, on which this story is built — "Lord, 
keep my memory green," which we take to be a 
wish that the fame of the man shall survive to 
aftertimes, so as to verify Herrick's sweet lines ; 

" Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dii^t." 

While Mr. Dickens makes it mean, " Lord, al- 
low my recollection (mental power of remem- 
brance) to be unimpaired;" like Swift's prayer 
that he should not die mad, viewing with fear 
the awful contingency of loss of mind. 

" From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show." 

At the Adelphi and the Polytechnic Institu- 
tion, this story, by the aid of the patent Pepper's- 
ghost apparatus, some three or four years since, 
excited considerable attention, and the satisfac- 
tory result, in a monetary sense, was testified 
by the fact of the numerous audiences at each 
representation. 

The five little Christmas books, which we have 
separately noticed under the year of their is- 
sue, were published in one volume, and entitled 
"Christmas Books." To this Mr, Dickens 
contributed a new and admirable prefece. 

Three days after Christmas-day, 18i7, Dick- 
ens was in Glasgow, presiding at the opening of 
the new Athenaum there. The burden of his 
speech was, "What constituted Real Educa- 
tion ?" 

" Mere reading and writing is not education," 
he said; "it would be quite as reasonable to 
call bricks and mortar architecture — oils and 
colors art — reeds and catgut music — or the 
child's spelling-books the works of Shakspeare, 
Milton, or Bacon — as to call the lowest rudi- 
ments of education, education, and to visit on 
that most abused and slandered word their fail- 
ure in any instance." These and kindred sen- 
timents were very warmly received, and were 
acknowledged in a complimentary speech by 
Sir Archibald (then Mr.) Alison. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

DICKENS AND THACKERAY. — "DAVID COPPER- 
FIELD." 

Mr. Dickens had hitherto met with no com- 
petitor in the field of English fiction. He had 
early won the attention of readers, but no writer 
had arisen to divide the honor with him. An- 
other novelist, however, was now beginning to 
be talked of. On the 1st of February, 1847, 
Mr. Thackeray had issued the first monthly por- 
tion of "Vanity Fair," in the yellow v^rapper 
which served to distinguish it from Mr. Dick- 
ens's stories, and, after some twelve months had 
passed, ci'itics began to speak of the work in 
terms of approbation. The " Edinburgh Re- 
view," criticising it in January, 1848, says : 
"The great charm of this work is its entire 
freedom from mannerism and affectation both in 
style and sentiment. * * * His pathos (though 
not so deep as Mr. Dickens's) is exquisite ; the 
more so, perhaps, because he seems to struggle 
against it, and to be half ashamed of being 
caught in the melting mood ; but the attempt 
to be caustic, satirical, ironical, or philosophical 
on such occasions is uniformly vain ; and again 
and again have we found reason to admire how 
an originally fine and kind nature rehiains -es- 
sentially free from worldliness, and, in the high- 
est pride of intellect, pays homage to the 
heart." 

From this time forward a friendly rivalry en- 
sued between the two representatives of the two 
schools of English fiction. We say " rivalry," 
but it never could have existed from Dickens's 
side ; for, when " Vanity Fair" was at its best, 
finding six thousand purchasers a mcnth, Dick- 
ens was taking the shillings from thirty to forty 
thousand readers ; but the gossips of society 
have always asserted that there zcas a rivalry, 
and made comparisons so very frequently be- 
tween the two great men, that we incidentally 
allude to it here. More than once has Thack- 
eray said to the present writer (or words very 
similar): "Ah! they talk to me of popularity, 
with a sale of little more than one half of 
10,000 ! Why, look at that lucky fellow Dick- 
ens, with Heaven knows how many readers, and 
certainly not less than 30,000 buyers !" But 
the fact is easily explained — only cultivated 
readers enjoy Thackeray, whereas both culti- 
vated and uncultivated read Dickens with de- 
light. 

To return to Mr. Dickens's new book — " Da- 
vid Copperfield," one of the finest and certainly 
one of the most popular of its author's works. 
The first number appeared May 1st, 1849, with 
illustrations by "Phiz." It extended to the 



58 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



usual twenty numbers, and on its completion 
was issued by Messrs, Bradbury & Evans, with 
a dedication to the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Richard 
Watson, of Rockingham. 

The work, as we have previously remarked, 
is a great favorite, and such it deserves to be, for 
to our mind it is the happiest of all his fictions. 
It was the first that we read, and well do we re- 
member the exquisite delight with which we ea- 
gerly devoured its pages — a rough seaman's copy 
of the American edition, which had been lent 
as an immense favor — and, boy-like, apprecia- 
ted and sympathized with David in his youthful 
struggles. At that time we had just quitted the 
liouse of a distant relative with wliom we had 
been residing, and who in very many respects — 
so far as trying to break David's spirit in before 
going to Salem House — greatly resembled the 
treatment shown towards ourselves. 

The book is written in a delightfully easy, 
earnest, yet most graceful manner; the plot is 
well contrived, and never forced. It has often 
been hinted that in many ways it is partly auto- 
biographical — the hero beginning at the law, 
turning parliamentary reporter, and finally 
winding up as a successful novelist, all of which 
the world knows have been Mr. Dickens's expe- 
riences. ' In fact, it is generally believed to oc- 
cupy the same position to Dickens as " Penden- 
nis " does to Thackeray. 

The peculiar commencement and description 
of Blunderstone Rookery ; the birth of the post- 
humous child ; the second marriage of David's 
mother to Murdstone ; his early days, and the 
wonderful crocodile book ; Peggotty, and the 
courtship of Barkis the carrier, leaving his offer- 
ings behind the door ; Mrs. Gummidge, Steer- 
forth, the famous Micawbers, Betsy Trotwood, 
the kind-hearted aunt, and her aversion to don- 
keys ; Mr. Dick and his memorial, and his ina- 
bility to keep Charles I. out of it ; David's love 
of darling Dora Spenlow, their marriage, and 
the dreadful troubles encountered in house-keep- 
ing, her death, and his consequent journey to 
Switzerland, and coming home and marrying 
Agnes Wickfield ; the villainies of Uriah Heep ; 
the eccentricities of Miss Mowcher, the corn ex- 
tractor; Emily, the poor seduced girl; the 
magnificent description of the storm at Yar- 
mouth, in which Steerforth the betrayer meets 
his death, while Ham, seeking to save him, 
meets the same fate ; the love of Daniel Peggot- 
ty for his niece, and his patient search after 
her ; Traddles and his ultimate success, and the 
starting off to the Antipodes of the Micawbers, 
Peggotty, Martha, Emily, and Mrs. Gummidge, 
their life in the bush, and how they prospered, 
are each and all described in such glowing lan- 



guage, destitute of exaggeration, and bearing so 
strongly the impress of truth and reality, that 
they can not fail to charm and delight the read- 
er. It would be impertinent further to point 
out — to our mind — the best points in the book, 
and one can but thank God that such a writer 
has jjcnned a work that can never be too much 
read or admired. 

In the latest edition of "David Copperfield" 
— in the "Charles Dickens Edition" — the au- 
thor takes us into his confidence and tells us that 
it was his favorite child. He says : " I remark- 
ed, in the original preface to this book, that I 
did not find it easy to get sufficiently away from 
it, in the first sensations of having finished, to 
refer to it with the composure whicli this formal 
heading would seem to require. My interest in 
it was so recent and strong, and my mind so di- 
vided between pleasure and regret — pleasure in 
the achievement of a long design, regret in the 
separation from many companions — that I was 
in danger of wearying the reader with personal 
confidences and private emotions. Besides 
which, all that I could have said of the story to 
any purpose I had endeavored to say in it. It 
would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know 
how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the 
close of a two years' imaginative task ; or how 
an author feels as if he were dismissing some 
portion of himself into the shadowy world when 
a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going 
from him forever. Yet I had nothing else to 
tell ; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which 
might be of less moment still) that no one can 
ever believe this narrative in the reading, more 
than I believed it in the writing. So true are 
these avowals at the present day, that I can 
only now take the reader into one confidence 
more. Of all my books, I like this the best. 
It will easily be believed that I am a fond pa- 
rent of every child of my fancy, and that no one 
can love them as dearly as I love them ; but, 
like many fond parents, I have, in my heart of 
hearts, a favorite child, and his name is David 
Copperfield." 

At the Strand Theatre, on October 21st, 1850, 
Almar's adaptation was played under the title 
of "Born with a Caul." The Surrey Theatre, 
in the following month, had a much better ver- 
sion ; Mr. Thomas Mead as Peggotty, and the 
renowned Mr. Widdicomb combining the char- 
acters of Miss Mowcher and Mr. Micaicher. 
But the most successful representation of all 
was "The Deal Boatman " at Drury Lane 
Theatre, two or three years since, in two acts, 
by Mr. Burnand. 

Mr. Dickens was living at this time at No. 1 
Devonshire Terrace, in the New Road. In his 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



59 



p* American Notes," in 
»«< Martin Chuzzlewit," 
md elsewhere in his 
writings, and occasion- 
illy in his speeches, he 
lad expressed his dis- 
ipproval of capital pun- 
lishment. He now re- 
isolved to be a witness 
It a "hanging match" 
■as it is frequently- 
piled by the lower or- 
lers — and afterwards 
publish his experiences. 
The trial of the notori- 
ous Mannings had re- 
cently startled society, 
and it was thought that 
the hanging of such 
notable wretches would 
at least afford a fair 




1«0. 1. DEVONSHIRE TETJKACE, NEW ROAD (1840-'50). 

[After removing from Doughty Street, Mr. Dickens resided in this house, and 



specimen of the riot and liere were written a large portion of "The Old Curiosity Shop," "Barnaby 

, ■.. ,. tfpTirl li'iclge," "A Christmas Carol," "The American Notes," and "Chuzzlewit," 

aemoraiization auena- ,, r^^^ cricket on the Hearth," " The Bal^tle of Life," " Dombey and Son," " The 

ing a London public Haunted Man," and "David Copperfleld."] 
execution. For the pur- 



pose of seeing the whole ceremony, and giv- 
ing the institution a fair trial, he left his house 
with a friend, on the evening previous, deter- 
mined to make a night of it in the crowd front- 
ing the Southwark scaffold. The following 
letter to the " Times " was the result : 

" I was a witness of the execution at Horse- 
monger Lane this morning. I went there with 
the intention of observing the crowd gathered 
to behold it, and I had excellent opportunities 
of doing so at intervals all through the night, 
and continuously from daybreak until after 
the spectacle was over. I do not address you 
on the subject with any intention of discussing 
the abstract question of capital punishment, or 
any of the arguments of its opponents or advo- 
cates. I simply wish to turn this dreadful ex- 
perience to some account for the general good, 
by taking the readiest and most public means 
of adverting to an intimation given by Sir G. 
Grey, in the last session of Parliament, that the 
Government might be induced to give its sup- 
port to a measure making the infliction of capi- 
tal punishment a private solemnity within the 
prison-walls (with such guaranties for the last 
sentence of the law being inexorably and sure- 
ly administered as should be satisfactory to the 
public at large), and of most earnestly beseech- 
ing Sir G. Grey, as a solemn duty which he 
owes to society, and a responsibility which he 
can not forever put away, to originate such a 
legislative change himself. I believe that a 



sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness 
and levity of the immense crowd collected at 
that execution this morning could be imagined 
by no man, and could be presented in no hea- 
then land under the sun. The horrors of the 
crime which brought the wretched murderers to 
it faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, 
looks, and language of the assembled spectators. 
When I came upon the scene at midnight, the 
shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised 
from time to time, denoting that they came from 
a concourse of boys and girls assembled in the 
best places, made my blood run cold. As the 
night went on, screeching and laughing, and 
yelling in strong chorus of parodies on negro 
melodies, with substitutions of ' Mrs. Manning ' 
for ' Susannah,' and the like, were added to 
these. When the day dawned, thieves, low pros- 
titutes, ruffians, and vagabonds of every kind, 
flocked on to the ground, with every variety of 
offensive and foul behavior. Fightings, faint- 
ings, whistlings, imitations of Punch, brutal 
jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent 
delight when swooning women were dragged 
out of the crowd by the police with their dress- 
es disordered, gave a new zest to the general en- 
tertainment. When the sun rose brightly — as 
it did — it gilded thousands upon thousands of 
up-turned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their 
brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had 
cause to feel ashamed of the shape he wore, and 
to shrink from himself, as fashioned in the 
image of the Devil. When the two miserable 



60 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight 
about them were turned quivering into the air, 
there was no more emotion, no more pity, no 
more thought that two immortal souls had gone 
to judgment, no more restraint in any of the 
previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ 
had ncA^er been heard in this world, and there 
were no belief among men but that they perish 
like the beasts. I have seen, habitually, some 
of the worst sources of general contamination 
and corruption in this country, and I think 
there are not many phases of London life that 
could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced 
that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be 
done in this city, in the same compass of time, 
could work such ruin as one public execution, 
and I stand astounded and appalled by the 
wickedness it exhibits. I do not believe that 
any community can prosper where such a scene 
of horror and demoralization as was enncted 
this morning outside Horsemonger Lane jail is 
presented at the very doors of good citizens, 
and is passed by, unknown or forgotten. And 
when, in our prayers and thanksgivings for the 
season, we are humbly expressing before God 
our desire to remove the moral evils of the 
land, I would ask your readers to consider 
whether it is not a time to think of this one, 
and to root it out. 
"Tuesday, November 13th." 

The great question of "public hanging" oc- 
cupied Dickens's attentioa for some time after. 
The horrors of that night and the morning pre- 
ceding the Manning execution he could not 
readily forget. Some days after he wrote to 
the "Times, "he addressed a long letter to his 
friend Douglas Jerrold, who was a Conservative 
on the question of capital punishment, and be- 
lieved heartily in Tyburn as a public insti- 
tution. Dickens thus remonstrates with his 
friend: "In a letter I have received from G. 
this morning he quotes a recent letter from 
you, in which you deprecate the ' mystery ' of 
private hanging. 

"Will you consider what punishment there is, 
except death, to which ' mystery ' does not at- 
tach? Will you consider whether all the im- 
provements in prisons and punishments that 
have been made within the last twenty years 
have or have not been all productive of ' mys- 
tery ?' I can remember very well when the si- 
lent system was objected to as mysterious, and 
opposed to the genius of English society. Yet 
there is no question that it has been a great 
benefit. The prison vans are mysterious ve- 
hicles ; but surely they are better than the 
old system of marching prisoners through the 



streets chained to a long chain, like the galley- 
slaves in 'Don Quixote.' Is there no mystery 
about transportation, and our manner of send- 
ing men away to Norfolk Island, or elsewhere? 
None in abandoning the use of a man's name, 
and knowing him only by a number? Is not 
the whole improved and altered system, from 
the beginning to end, a mystery ? I wish I 
could induce you to feel justified in leaving 
that word to the platform people, on the 
strength of your knowledge of what crime was, 
and of what its punishments were, in the days 
when there was no mystery connected with 
these things, and all was as open as Bridewell 
when Ned Ward went to see the women whip- 
ped." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

"household words." — THE GUILD OF LIT- 
ERATURE. 

Notwithstanding past experiences in con- 
nection with the "Daily News," Mr. Dickens 
was still desirous of some periodical in which 
he could hold frequent and regular intercourse 
with his readers. Early in 1850 our inde- 
fatigable author projected the "Household 
Words," a name which was more or less famil- 
iar to the public through a line in Shakspeare's 
Henry V. — "Familiar in their mouths as 
^Household T'Fb?-c/s.' " It is just worth while, 
in passing, to say that this motto was a favor- 
ite with Mr. Dickens. He often used it in 
conversation, long before a periodical of the 
kind was dreamed of. As far back as his first 
visit to America, when he was addressing the 
young men of Boston, and Washington Irving, 
Holmes, and other celebrities were present, he 
said: "You have in America great writers — 
great writers — who will live in all time, and 
are as familiar to our lips as household words."* 
And afterwards, in his speeches, the motto was 
not uncommon. 

On Saturday, March 30th, 1850, was issued 
the first number of " Household Words, price 
2d., conducted by Charles Dickens." 

No article had the name of its author append- 
ed, and when the " Conductor " proposed to Jer- 
rold that he should contribute to its pages, but 
added that his name could not appear, as the 
journal was anonymous, the wit replied, "Aye, 
I see it is, for there's the name of Charles Dick- 
ens on every page." 

Among the original contributors to " House- 
hold Words" may be mentioned John Fors- 

* February 1, 1842. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



61 



ter, W. H. Wills, George Augustus 
Sala, Moy Thomas, John Hollings- 
head, Miss Martineau, Professor Mor- 
ley, Edmund Yates, Dr. Charles Mackay, 
Andrew Halliday, Edmund Oilier, and 
many other talented writers. It was 
the great delight of the "Conductor" 
to draw around him the rising talent 
— the new men who gave evidence of 
literary ability ; and many a mark have 
they made in the pages of "Household 
Words!" 

Connected with ' ' Household Words, " 
at the end of each month, appeared the 
"Household Narrative," containing a 
history of the preceding month. It be- 
gan in April of this year, and involved 
Mr. Dickens in a dispute with the 
Stamp Office. An information was 
laid against the "Narrative," it being 
contended that, under the Stamp Duty 
Act, it was a newspaper ; but, on appeal 
to the Court of Exchequer, the barons 
decided in Mr. Dickens's favor, and 
thus the first step to the repeal of the 
newspaper stamp was given. The pub- 
lication was not a success, people pre- 
ferring to pay for amusement and in- 



formation combined, rather than for "^^^^^^^^^^^ 




the latter in a purely statistical form. 
It stopped at about the 70th number, 
and sets are now rare. 

But to return to "Household Words." 
A friend who knew Dickens writes : 
' ' His editorship of this periodical was 
no nominal post. Papers sent in for 
approval invariably went through a prelimina- 
ry ' testing ' by the acting editor (Mr. W. H. 
Wills) ; but all those which survived this ordeal 
were conscientiously read and judged by Mr. 
Dickens, who again read all the accepted con- 
tributions in proof, and made numerous and 
valuable alterations in them." Besides the or- 
dinary tales and articles upon popular topics, 
there appeared in "Household Words" in good 
time for the festive season, and during the first 
year, a collection of stories, Connected entirely 
with Christmas, viz. : " A Christmas Tree " and 
"A Christmas Pudding," "Christmas in the 
Navy, in Lodgings, in India, in the Frozen Re- 
gions, in the Bush, and among the Sick and 
Poor of London," and "Household Christmas 
Carols." 

In the ensuing January, Dickens commenced 
in this journal the publication of his "Child's 
History of England." This little work be- 
came very popular, and in the following year 
it was reprinted in a separate form by Messrs. 



TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE (1850-60). 

[Before Dickens removed here, the house was occupied by 
Mr. Perry, the ouce famous chief of the "Morning Chronicle." 
Whilst living at Tavistock House, "Bleak House," "A Child's 
History of England," "Hard Times," " Little Dorrit," "A Tale 
of Two Cities," portions of " Hunted Down," and the " Uncom- 
mercial Traveller " were written. In 1S60 our Author finally 
removed to Gad's Hill.] 



Bradbury and Evans, and inscribed as fol- 
lows : 

" TO MY OWN DEAE OHILDEEN, 

WHOM I HOPE IT MAY HELP, BY-AND-BY, TO BEAD "WITH 

INTEREST LARGER AND BETTER BOOKS ON THE 

SAME SUBJECT." 

The Battle of Hastings is one of the finest 
and most marvellous pieces of descriptive writ- 
ing in the " Child's History," which — as has 
been well remarked — "might be read by many 
children of larger growth with much profit." 
This is an extract from his glowing descrip- 
tion : "The sun rose high and sank, and the 
battle still raged. Through all the wild Octo- 
ber day the clash and din resounded in the air. 
In the red sunset, in the white moonlight, heaps 
upon heaps of dead men lay strewn, a dreadful 
spectacle, all over the ground. King Harold, 
wounded with an arrow in the eye, was near- 
ly blind. His brothers were already killed. 
Twenty Norman knights, wliose battered ar- 
mor had flashed fiery and golden all day long. 



62 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dash- 
ed forward to seize the royal banner from the 
English knights and soldiers, still faithfully 
collected round their blinded king. The king 
received a mortal wound and dropped." 

If the remainder of the description is turned 
into blank verse (as Byron did when copying 
"Werner" from the "Canterbury Tales" of 
Miss Lee), by adding two words, and expung- 
ing some few others, we obtain this glowing 
and beautiful narration : 

"The English broke aud fled. 
The Normans rallied, and the day was lost ! 
Oh, what a sight beneath the moon aud stars ! 
The lights were shining in the victor's tent 
(Pitch'd near the spot where blinded Harold fell) ; 
He aud his knights carousing were within; 
Soldiers with torches, going to and fro, 
Sought for the corpse of Harold 'mongst the dead. 
The Warrior, work'd with stones and golden thread. 
Lay low, all torn, aud soil'd with English blood, 
And the three Lions kept watch o'er the field 1" 

The work has never been reprinted at a low- 
er price than the old thi-ee-volunie form, and 
of course it forms no part of the recent " Cheap 
Editions" and the '• Charles Dickens Edition ;" 
but, now that extra attention will be directed 
to the writings of Mr. Dickens, it is to be hoped 
that it may be reprinted at a moderate price. 

The second Christmas number (1851) of 
" Household Words " consisted of nine stories 
about Christmas, and how it was held, and what 
it was like in different companies and countries 
— in fact, very similar to the preceding num- 
ber. 

At the Sixth Annual Dinner of the General 
Theatrical Fund (April 14, 1851), the conduct- 
ors again begged Mr. Dickens to preside. His 
speech was short, but exceedingly happy. Speak- 
ing of the Theatrical Fund, he said : 

"It is a society in which the word exclu- 
siveness is wholly unknown. It is a society 
which includes every actor, whether he be Ben- 
edick or Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, 
or the court-physician, or, in the one person, 
the whole king's army. He may do the ' light 
business,' or the 'heavy,' or the comic, or 
the eccentric. He may be the captain who 
courts the young lady, whose uncle still unac- 
countably persists in dressing himself in a cos- 
tume one hundred years older than his time. 
Or he may be the young lady's brother in the 
white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in 
the family appears to be to listen to the female 
members of it whenever they sing, and to shake 
hands with every body between all the verses. 
Or he may be the baron who gives the fete, and 
who sits uneasily on the sofa under a canopy 
with the baroness while the fete is going on. 
Or he may be the peasant at the fete who comes 



on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, and 
who, it may be observed, always turns bis glass 
upside down before he begins to drink out of it. i 
Or he may be the clown who takes away the 
door-step of the house where the evening jmrty 
is going on. Or he may be the gentleman who 
issues out of the house on the false alarm, and 
is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the 
actresses, she may be the fairy who resides for- 
ever in a revolving star, with an occasional 
visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may 
be the armed head of the witch's caldroii ; or 
even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom 
I have observed, in country places, that he is 
much less like the notion formed from the de- 
scription of Hopkins than the Malcolm or Don- 
albain of the previous scenes. This society, in 
short, says, 'Be you what you may, be you 
actor or actress, be your path in your profession 
never so high or never so low, never so haughty 
or never so humble, we offer you the means of 
doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to 
your brethren.' " 

In June, 1851, a project — which, it is said, 
Mr. Dickens had long had in contemplation — 
was brought forward by Sir Edward Bulwer 
Lytton, namely, the founding of a Guild of Lit- 
erature and Art ; in reality, a provident fund 
and benefit society for unfortunate literary men 
and artists. From it the proper persons would 
receive continual or occasional relief, as the 
case might be ; but the leading feature was the 
"Provident Fund," to be composed of moneys 
deposited by the authors themselves, when they 
were in a position to be able to lay by some- 
thing. Dickens and Sir Edward Bulwer Lyt- 
ton (since a peer) were the most active promot- 
ers. The precise plan of the " Guild" was dis- 
cussed at Lord Lytton's seat, at Knebworth, the 
November previously. There had been three 
amateur performances, by Dickens and others, 
of " Every Man in his Humor," for the gratifi- 
cation of his lordship and his neighboring 
friends, when it was arranged that his lordship 
should write a comedy, and Dickens and Mark 
Lemon a farce. The comedy was entitled 
" Not so Bad as t\'e Seem," and the farce bore 
the name of "Mrs. Nightingale's Diary." The 
first performance took place at Devonshire 
House, before the Queen, the Prince Consort, 
and the court circles ; and afterwards at the 
Hanover Square Rooms, and at many of the 
large provincial towns (Bath, Bristol, etc.). 
At Devonshire House, not the least incident 
occurred to shade what a late Drury Lane 
manager might, in his own Titanic way, have 
called " the blaze of triumph." From the first 
moment that the scheme was made known to 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



63 



her Majesty and Prince Albert, both the Queen 
and the Prince manifested the liveliest interest 
in its success. The Duke of Devonshire, with 
a munificence that made the name of his Grace 
a proverb for liberality, dedicated his mansion 
to the cause of Literature and Art, and his 
house was for many days in possession of the 
amateurs. 

The play began at half past nine, Her Majes- 
tv, Prince Albert, and the royal family occupy- 



ing a box erected for the occasion. The seats 
were filled by the most illustrious for rank and 
genius. There was the Duchess of Sutherland ; 
there was the " Iron Duke," in his best temper; 
there was Macaulay, Chevalier Bunsen, Van der 
Weyer — themselves authors ; in fact, all the 
highest representatives of the rank, beauty, and 
genius of England, and her foreign ambassadors. 
The list of the performers, and the parts 
taken by them, is a curiosity in its way : 



MEN. 

The Ditke of Middlesex^ Peers attached to the son of James II., commonO Mr, Feank Stone. 

The Earl of Loftus, f ly called the First Pretender / Mr. Dudley Costello. 

Lord Wilmot, a youno; man at the head of the mode more than a century | -j^jj._ Cjj^;m^Es Dickens. 

ago, son to Lord Loftns / 

JID: Shadoichj Softhead, a yoirng gentleman from the city, friend aud> ^j^.^ Douglas Jeekolb. 

double to Lord Wilmot / 

Mr. Hardman, a rising Member of Parliament, and adherent to Sir E.ob-| -^^. jq^n Foester. 

ert Walpole ) 

Sir Geoffrey Thornside, a gentleman of good family and estate Mr. Maek Lemon. 

Mr. Ooodenough Easy, in business, highly respectable, and a friend to) 1^^.^ -g,^ ^ Topham. 

SirGeoffrey J 

Loi-d Le Trimvier, •\ 1 Mr. Petee Cunningham, 

Sir Thomas Timid, l Frequenters of Will's Coffee-house I Mr. Westland Maeston. 

Colond Flint, 3 J Mr. R. H. Hoene. 

Mr. Jacob Tonson, a bookseller Mr. Chaeles Knight. 

Smart, valet to Lord Wilmot Mr. Wilkie Collins. 

Hodge, servant to Sir Geofi^rey Thornside Mr. John Tenniel. 

Paddy 0' Sullivan, Mr, Fallen's landlord Mr, Robeet Bell, 

Mr. David Fallen, Grub Street, author and pamphleteer Mr, Augustus Egg, A.E.A. 

Lord Strongloxv, Sir John Bruin, Coffee-house Loxmgers, Draivers, Xeivsmen, Watchmen, etc., etc. 

W03IEN, 

Liicy, daughter to Sir Geoffrey Thornside Mrs, Compton. 

Barlara, daughter to Mr, Easy Miss Ellen Chaplin. 

The Silent Lady of Deadman's Lane. 



The royal party paid the deepest attention to 
the progress of the play. Her Majesty frequent- 
ly leading the applause. And when the cur- 
tain fell upon the three hours' triumph, Her 
Majesty rose in her box, and, by the most cor- 
dial demonstration of approval, "commanded" 
(for such may be the word) the reappearance 
of all the actors, again to receive the royal ap- 
proval of their efforts. Kor did the Queen and 
Prince merely bestow applause. Her Majesty 
took seventeen places for herself, visitors, and 
suite ; and, further, as a joint contribution of 
herself and the Prince, headed the list of sub- 
scriptions with £150, making the sum total of 
£225. It is said that the receipts of the night 
exceeded £1000. Another representation at 
Devonshire House took place on the following 
Tuesday, the admission being £2. The farce 
written for the occasion, called " Mrs. Nightin- 
gale's Diary," was performed, and Charles 
Dickens and Mark Lemon sustained the princi- 
pal characters. A critic at the time remarked : 
" Both these gentlemen are admirable actors. 
It is by no means amateur playing with them. 
Dickens seizes the strong points of a character, 
bringing them out as effectively upon the stage 
as his pen undyingly marks them upon paper. 



Lemon has all the ease of a finished performer, 
with a capital relish for comedy and broad 
farce." 

For the representations in the provinces a 
portable theatre was constructed, Messrs. Clark- 
son Stanfield, David Roberts, Grieve, and oth- 
ers, painting the scenes, etc., which are said to 
have been very beautiful. The funds raised 
were unfortunately, by a flaw in the act of Par- 
liament, unintentionally tied up for a number 
of years; but on Saturday, July 29th, 1865, the 
surviving members of the Fund proceeded to 
the neighborhood of Stevenage, near the mag- 
nificent seat of the President, Lord Lytton, to 
inspect three houses built in the Gothic style on 
the ground given by him for that purpose. An 
enterprising publican in the vicinity had just 
previously opened his establishment, which bore 
the very appropriate sign of "Our jNlutual 
Friend " — Mr, Dickens's then latest work — and 
caused considerable merriment. 

So popular had Mr. Dickens become in the 
character of President or Chairman at the an- 
niversaries of benevolent societies, that the gar- 
deners begged him to ofl!iciate for them at their 
dinner and meeting of the " Gardeners' Benev- 
olent Institution." The affair came off on the 



64 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



14th June, 1852, at the London Tavern. The 
splendid disphiy of flowers was the result of a 
very hearty combination of the very best efforts 
of the best gardeners, and Mr. Dickens (to use 
his own phrase) ' ' burst into bloom " upon the 
culture of flowers and fruits in such a way as to 
astonish his auditory. 

The ' ' Household Words " Christmas number 
for 1852 was entitled " A Round of Stories by 
the Christmas Fire," told by A Poor Relation — 
A Child — Somebody — An Old Nurse — The 
"Boots " — A Grandfiither — A Char-woman — A 
Deaf Playmate — A Guest, and A Mother. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

** BLEAK HOUSE." — LEIGH HUNT. 

Two years had now elapsed since the comple- 
tion of "David Copperfield," and a new novel 
was announced, to appear in the old familiar 
serial form, under the title of "Bleak House." 
It is not generally known, we believe, that the 
name "Bleak House " was taken from that tall, 
solitary brick house which stands away from the 
others, and rising far aboA'e them, at Broad- 
stairs — the house where for one, if not for two 
seasons, Mr. Dickens resided. This charming 
little town was for many years Mr. Dickens's 
favorite sea-side resort — in fact, " Our Water- 
ing-place," as he called it in an article in 
" Household Words " some years since. The 
house in question is a square, sullen structure — 
hard and bleak, and of course it is now one of 
the lions of the place, the guide-books and local 
photographers setting great store by it. Just 
below Bleak House, on the point that runs out 
to form the harbor, is the Tartar Frigate, the 
cosiest little sailor's inn, selling the strongest 
of tobacco, and the strongest-smelling rum that 
is to be met with around the coast. Close by is 
a rope-house, decorated with wonderful figure- 
heads, each having a wild story of shipwreck to 
tell. As you pass the little Tartar Frigate, with 
its red blinds and little door, you know what 
are the sounds that are to be heard there any 
night during the winter. The very walls must 
have long ago learnt " Tom Bowling" and the 
'.' Bay of Biscay " by heart, and would now be 
very thankful for a fresh song. Dickens knew 
the little inn very well, and, under the title of 
"The Tartar Frigate," he gave in "Household 
Words," some years since, an admirable descrip- 
tion of this little town with a tiny harbor. The 
great novelist was fond of genuine sailors — the 
hardy, good-tempered fellows of Deal and 
Broadstairs — brave as lions, and guileless as 



children ; and it was to his being so much in 
their company that he doubtless owed his sailor 
look. Mr. Arthur Locker, whose recollections 
we have before quoted, saw him only a few 
weeks before his death, when he was "struck 
by his sailor-like aspect — a peculiarity observed 
by many other persons. Yet, except his two 
voyages to America, he had not been much on 
the sea, and was not, I believe, a particularly 
good sailor. But we all know his sympathy 
for seamen, and I think, without being fanciful, 
that his nautical air may in part be attributed 
to early Portsmouth associations." 

"Bleak House " ran through its course of 
numbers, and appeared in a complete form in 
August of the following year : 

"dedicated, 

AS A EEiMEMBRANOE OF OUE 

FRIENDLY UNION, 

TO -MY COMPANIONS 

IN THE 

GUILD OF LITEEATUEE AND AJIT." 

The work was directed with considerable ef- 
fect against the Court of Chancery. Lawyers 
and others were loud in their complaints at the 
way in which their favorite court had been as- 
sailed ; but the majority of legal readers, wheth- 
er then or even now practising, or connected in 
any shape or way with the court in question — 
or even only as unfortunate suitors — can testify 
as to the enormous waste of time, and the cost- 
ly procedure therein. Matters have of late 
years somewhat improved, but a great deal yet 
remains to be remedied. 

The author, in his preface, took the opportu- 
nity of defending himself from the remarks 
made upon the supposititious suit of Jarndyce 
vs. Jarndyce,* and Krook's death by sponta- 
neous combustion. The latter incident excited 
much controversy at the time, Mr. G. H. Lewes 
opposing the idea strongly ; but Dickens main- 
tained his ground, and referred to several well- 
authenticated cases in support of the theory. 

One of the characters in the book, Harold j 
Skimpole, an incarnation of a canting and hyp- 
ocritical scoundrel, whom one longs to kick, was 
fastened upon as the impersonation of that kind 
and genial writer, the late Leigh Hunt. Those 
who had the good fortune to know him person- 
ally indignantly refuted the calumny, and, like 

* Suggested, it is believed, by the celebrated case 
of the Jennings property. Dickens had previously z 
brought an antagonist upon himself in the person of f j 
Sir Edward Sugden (now Lord St. Leonards), in con- 
sequence of an article in " Household Words," headed 
"Martyrs in Chancery," on the oflFense of Contempt 
of Court, and replied to by the above eminent lawyer, 
in a letter to the "Times " (7th January, 1S51), giving 
a true version of the case therein referred to. 



\ 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



65 



other unfounded rumors, the matter died out, 
until, after his death, the idea was again bruited 
forth. 

Mr. Thornton Hunt (his eldest son), in pre- 
paring a new edition of his father's famous "Au- 
tobiography," prefixed an introductory chapter, 
in which the following passages occur °. 

" His animation, his sympathy with what was 
gay and pleasurable, his avowed doctrine of cul- 
tivating cheerfulness, were manifest on the sur- 
face, and could be appreciated by those who 
knew him in society, most probably even exag- 
gerated as salient traits, on which he himself in- 
sisted tcith a sort of gay and ostentatious willful- 
ness. 

"The anxiety to recognize the right of oth- 
ers, the tendency to 'refine,' which was noted by 
an early school companion, and the propensity 
to elaborate eveiy thought, made him, along 
with the direct argument by which he sustained 
his own conviction, recognize and almost admit 
all that might be said on the opposite side. 

" It is most desirable that his qualities should 
be known as they were ; for such deficiencies as 
he had are the honest explanation of his mis- 
takes ; while, as the reader may see from his 
writing and his conduct, they are not, as the 
faults of which he was accused would be, in- 
compatible with the noblest faculties both of 
head and heart. To know Leigh Hunt as he 
was, was to hold him in reverence and love." 

Dickens immediately, in a number of "All 
the Year Round," under the head of " Leigh 
Hunt — a Remonstrance," made this statement : 

" Four or five years ago, the writer of these 
lines was much pained by accidentally encoun- 
tering a printed statement, ' that Mr, Leigh Hunt 
was the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak 
House.' The writer of these lines is the author 
of that book. The statement came from Amer- 
ica. It is no disrespect to that country, in 
which the writer has, perhaps, as many friends 
and as true an interest as any man that lives, 
good-humoredly to state the fact that he has 
now and then been the subject of paragraphs in 
transatlantic newspapers more surprisingly des- 
titute of all foundation in truth than the wildest 
delusions of the wildest lunatics. For reasons 
born of this experience, he let the thing go by. 

" But since Mr. Leigh Hunt's death the state- 
ment has been revived in England. The deli- 
cacy and generosity evinced in its revival are 
for the rather late consideration of its revivers. 
The fact is this : Exactly those graces and 
charms of manner which are remembered in the 
words we have quoted were remembered by the 
author of the Avork of fiction in question when 
he drew the character in question. Above all 

5 



other things, that ' sort of gay and ostenta- 
tious willfulness' in the humoring of a sub- 
ject, which had many times delighted him, and 
impressed him as being unspeakably whimsical 
and attractive, was the airy quality he wanted 
for the man he invented. Partly for this rea- 
son, and partly (he has since often grieved to 
think) for the pleasure it afforded him to find 
that delightful manner reproducing itself under 
his hand, he yielded to the temptation of too 
often making the character speak like his old 
friend. He no more thought, God forgive him ! 
that the admired original would ever be charged 
with the imaginary vices of the fictitious crea- 
ture than he has himself ever thought of charg- 
ing the blood of Desdemona and Othello on the 
innocent Academy model who sat for lago's leg 
in the picture. Even as to the mere occasion- 
al manner, he meant to be so cautious and con- 
scientious that he privately referred the proof- 
sheets of the first number of that book to two in- 
timate literary friends of Leigh Hunt (both still 
living), and altered the whole of that part of 
the text on their discovering too strong a re- 
semblance to his ' way.' 

"He can not see the son lay this wreath on 
the father's tomb, and leave him to the possibil- 
ity of ever thinking that the present words might 
have righted the father's memory and were left 
unwritten. He can not know that his own son 
may have to explain his father when folly or 
malice can wound his heart no more, and leave 
this task imdone." 

Mr. Thornton Hunt, alluding to his father's 
incapacity to understand figures, frankly admit- 
ted, " His so-called improvidence resulted part- 
ly from actual disappointment in professional 
undertakings, partly from a real incapacity to 
understand any objects when they were reduced 
to figures,* and partly from a readiness of self- 
sacrifice, which was the less to be guessed by 
any one who knew him, since he seldom alluded 
to it, and never, except in the vaguest and most 
unintelligible terms, hinted at its real nature or 
extent." 

Very recently, and since the decease of the 
great novelist, a similar statement about Skim- 
pole and Leigh Hunt, made in the columns of 
a daily journal, f was thus replied toby Mr. Ed- 
mund Oilier, an old friend of the deceased es- 
sayist : "Dickens himself corrected the misap- 
prehension in a paper in ' All the Year Round,' 

* Several anecdotes have been circulated relative 
to the late Lord Macaulay's dislike to mathematics, 
and, acting on this distaste, he declined to compete 
for honors, but was, in consideration of his great pro- 
ficiency in other studies, elected a fellow of his col- 
lege (Trinity, Cambridge). 

t " Daily News," 10th June, ISTO. 



GG 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



towards the close of 1859, after Hunt's death; 
and during Hunt's life, and after the publication 
of 'Bleak House,' he wrote a most genial paper 
about him in ' Household Words.' It is also 
within my knowledge that he expressed to Leigh 
Hunt personally his regret at the Skimpole mis- 
take." 

Leigh Hunt himself, in confessing his inabil- 
ity at school to master the multiplication-table, 
naively adds, " Nor do I know it to this day !" 
And again : "I equally disliked Dr. Franklin, 
author of ' Poor Richard's Almanac,' a heap, as 
it appeared to me, of 'scoundrel maxims.'* I 
think I now appreciate Dr. Franklin as I ought ; 
but, although I can see the utility of such pub- 
lications as his almanac for a rising commercial 
state, and hold it useful as a memorandum to 
uncalculating persons like myself, who happen 
to live in an old one, I think there is no neces- 
sity for it in commercial nations long establish- 
ed, and that it has no business in others who do 
not found their happiness in that sort of power. 
Franklin, with all his abilities, is but at the 
head of those who think that man lives ' by 
bread alone.' " 

And again, in his "Journal," a few years 
ago, that gentleman, after narrating several 
agreeable hardships inflicted upon him, says : 
"A little before this, a friend in a manufactur- 
ing town was informed that I was a terrible 
speculator in the money markets! I who was 
never in a market of any kind but to buy an 
apple or a flower, and A\ho could not dabble in 
money business if I would, from sheer ignorance 
of their language !" 

Just at this time other characters in Mr. 
Dickens's novel were selected by gossips as rep- 
resenting this or that distinguished individual. 
Thus Boythome was affirmed to be the ener- 
getic Mr. Walter Savage Landor. Miss Mar- 
tineau came forward in her own person to take 
the cap of Mrs. Jellaby, and to scold Mr. Dick- 
ens for his allusions to " blue-stockingism " and 
"Borioboola Gha." Whether there was any 
foundation for these parallels between living in- 
dividuals and the characters in "Bleak House," 
it is not now likely the world will ever know, 
but there can be no doubt about one of the 
characters in that book — the French lady's 
maid. Mr. Dickens made no secret about her 
representing Mrs, Manning the murderess. In- 
deed he attended at her examination at the Po- 



* Thomson's phrase in his "Castle of Indolence," 
speaking of a miserly money-getter: 

"'A penny saved is a penny got;' 

• Firm to this sconndrel maxim keepeth he, 

Nor of its rigor will he bate a jot, 
Till he hath quench'd his fire and banished his pot." 



lice Court, and was present both at her trial ami 
her execution. Her broken English, her im- 
patient gestures, and her volubility, are imita- 
ted in the novel with marvellous exactness. 

The character of Turveydrop, we may men- 
tion, was always believed to portray "the first 
gentleman in Europe," his Sacred Majesty King 
George the Fourth. 



CHAPTER XX. 

AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. — THE FIRST READING. 

As many statements have recently been made 
in this country and in the United States re- 
specting Mr. Dickens's relations to the Ameri- 
can publishers of his works, we may say that 
" Bleak House " was his first novel issued there 
in profits arising from the sale of which he par- 
ticipated. 

Up to the publication of " Dombey and Son " 
he had received nothing from America. It was 
understood that he was rather more angry with 
Messrs. Hai'per & Brothers — subsequently his 
recognized publishers — than with any other trans-, 
atlantic house. They had just begun publishing 
their " New Monthly Magazine," and the pub- 
lishers of the "International Magazine" were 
contesting with the Harpers the first place in 
American periodical literature. After a severe 
and indecisive struggle of a year, one of the con- 
ductors of the "International" conceived an 
idea which, if successfully carried out, would 
have given the victory to that Magazine : one 
of its publishers was going abroad, and was au- 
thorized to secure from Mr. Dickens " advanced 
sheets " of his next novel for publication in the 
" International." 

The steamer on which he sailed had hardly 
got out of sight before Dr. Griswold, of the 
" International," had given to the "Evening 
Post " a sensational paragraph, stating that Mr. 
Dickens had been engaged to write for the "In- 
ternational Magazine " a new novel, for which 
he was to be paid $2000 — a sum considerably 
larger in 1850 than in 1867 — and then consid- 
ered enormous for the favor demanded. The 
watchful Harpers sent out in the next steamer 
a messenger who went directly to Mr. Dickens, 
and found him ready for any reasonable offer. 
The "Post "with Dr. Griswold's paragraph be- 
ing shown him, he at once decided to hold the 
Yankees to the terms therein set forth, and 
agreed for the 62000 to furnish Harper & Broth- 
ers with "advanced sheets" of the next novel, 
which was the present one of "Bleak House." 
The messenger of the "International" had 

. 5 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



C7 



made the very great blunder of going to Mr. 
Dickens's publisher instead of to Mr. Dickens 
himself. The publisher had told him that Mr. 
Dickens was busy about private theatricals, 
which would probably absorb his attention for 
an indefinite period, and that no new novel was 
in contemplation. In fact, it is not improbable 
that, on account of the bargain with the Har- 
pers, " Bleak House" was written, or at least 
published, before it otherwise would have been. 
It is said that Mr. Dickens has received up- 
wards of $100,000 on the sale of his works in 
America. 

Early in the new year Mr. Dickens paid a 
visit to the Midland counties. Birmingham 
has always been very partial to our great novel- 
ist, and he in turn has been equally partial to 
Birmingham. One of his earliest speeches was 
delivered here, and for services rendered to the 
town a public presentation of a diamond ring 
and a silver salver was made to him, in the 
rooms of the society of Artists there, on January 
6, 1853. A banquet was subsequently given to 
him, and Mr. Dickens made three speeches on 
the occasion. 

In May of this year Dickens was the guest of 
the Lord Mayor. His lordship had invited a 
number of literary celebrities to dine with him, 
including Mrs. Beecher Stowe and her husband, 
and Dickens was called upon to respond to Mr. 
Justice Talfourd's toast, "Anglo-Saxon Liter- 
ature." 

Mrs. Stowe, in her "Sunny Memories of 
Foreign Lands," alludes to the occasion, and 
to the author of ' Bleak House," remarking: 
" Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom 
I now beheld for the first time, and was sur- 
prised to see looking so young. Mr. Justice 
Talfourd made allusion to the author of ' Uncle 
Tom's Cabin ' and Mr. Dickens, speaking of 
both as having employed fiction as a means of 
awakening the attention of the respective coun- 
tries to the condition of the oppressed and suf- 
fering classes. We rose from table between 
eleven and twelve o'clock — that is, we ladies — 
and went into the drawing-room, where I was 
presented to Mrs. Dickens and several other 
ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a good specimen of a 
truly English woman ; tall, large, and well-de- 
veloped, with fine, healthy color, and an air 
»of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability. A 
friend whispered to me that she was as observ- 
ing and fond of humor as her husband. After 
a while the gentlemen came back to the draw- 
ing-room, and I had a few moments of very 
pleasant friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. 
They are both people that one could not know 
a little of without desiring to know more." 



In her adieus she said: "I have omitted, 
however, that I went with Lady Hatherton to 
call on Mr. and Mrs. Dickens, and was sorry to 
find him too unwell to be able to see me. Mrs. 
Dickens, who was busy in attending him, also 
excused herself, and we saw her sister." 

We now come to an important event in Mr. 
Dickens's career — his first public "reading." 
Various towns claim the honor of being the first 
to invite the great novelist to read to its inhab- 
itants ; but we believe Peterborough was the 
real scene of his first appearance in the capaci- 
ty of a public reader. Beading aloud, however, 
to the circle of his household, and at those 
Hampstead dinners, had often been a source of 
gratification to his friends. The first allusion 
to reading his works in public was made at Bir- 
mingham, 6th January, 1853, when he returned 
thanks for a present that had been made to him. 
He then promised to come next December to 
give two or three readings, from his own books, 
on behalf of the Midland Institute ; suggesting 
that the novelty of such a proceeding might 
produce something towards the funds of that 
admirable institution. A daily journal* with 
which Mr. Dickens was formerly connected has, 
however, recently asserted that it was at Chat- 
ham that our author made his first public ap- 
pearance ; but we believe that in the quiet lit- 
tle city of Peterborough, some few months be- 
fore the time for the Birmingham reading had 
arrived, Mr. Dickens essayed his first public 
reading, he himself going down a day or two 
before to superintend the stage, and those "ef- 
fects" which, however small, he never neglected. 

Whether Birmingham, Peterborough, or Chat- 
ham can claim the honor, there can be no ques- 
tion about the result of Mr. Dickens's efforts in 
this new line. It was an iindoubted success, 
and was soon repeated for other charitable in- 
stitutions in various parts of England. At Bir- 
mingham over £300 were collected. INIr. Dick- 
ens used to tell some amusing stories of his 
"reading" experiences in the provinces. At 
one town in the North, a door-keeper's opinion 
was invited by a gentleman who was entering 
the room to hear the second "reading" of the 
course. 

" Very fair, sir," was the reply ; "very fair ; 
he does not read amiss ; but his attitudes are 
poor, sir. I think nothing of his attitudes." 

It is tolerably well known that our author nev- 
er experienced those bashful sensations which 
most persons experience when they come before 
the public for the first time. The reader's own 
recollections of rising to respond to toasts, even 

* "The Daily News," llth June, 1870. 



68 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



in a private circle, will suggest the feeling which 
Mr. Dickens never knew. Mr. George Hodder 
says : "I once asked Mr. Dickens if he ever felt 
nervous in public. 

" 'Not in the least,' was the answer. 'The 
first time I took the chair, I felt as much confi- 
dence as if I had done the thing a hundred 
times.' 

" At a dinner to his eldest son, who was go- 
ing out to China, the young man became warm- 
ed with the wine ; and Dickens, in returning 
thanks when his own health was drunk, said 
that after so good a dinner ' a little transaction 
in tea would do his son a world of good.' " 

It was always this happy readiness at re- 
sponse, this being able to reply on the moment, 
that made him, as he certainly was, the best af- 
ter-dinner speaker in England. There is an 
exquisite delicacy in his treatment of an ordi- 
nary subject, and in the selection of words, 
which, if possessed by any other speaker in this 
country — Mr. Bright, perhaps, excepted — is cer- 
tainly not shown in any recent efiforts of their 
oratory. As has been remarked, some of his 
speeches are equal to the finest pages of his 
printed works. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

"hard times." — " SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS." 
" HOLLT-TREE INN." 

In August, 1854, Mr. Dickens published his 
" Hard Times," which had previously appeared 
in the weekly pages of " Household Words." It 
was ^^ Inscribed to Thomas Carhjle,^^ for whom 
Mr. Dickens ever felt the warmest admiration. 
This work is treated differently to any of his 
other books, and hardly sustains his reputation, 
being the least read and admired of his numer- 
ous fictions. The plot is meagre and aimless. 
The personages are too often exaggerated and 
overdrawn ; the design, apparently, being to 
place facts, figures, science, and political econo- 
my in any thing but a favorable or correct 
light. The education received by the Grad- 
grinds is preposterous. Mr. Charles Knight, 
in his "Passages of a Working Life," said: 
"Before I published, in 1854, my volume of 
' Knowledge is Power,' I sent a copy to my 
eminent friend (Mr. Charles Dickens), with 
somewhat of apprehension, for he was then 
publishing his ' Hard Times.' I said that I was 
afraid that he would set me down as a cold- 
hearted political economist. His reply, of the 
30th of January, 1854, was very characteristic; 
and I venture to extract it, as it may not only 
correct some erroneous notions as to his opinions 



on such subjects, but proclaim a great truth, 
which has perhaps not been sufficiently attend- 
ed to by some of the dreary and dogmatic pro- 
fessors of what has been called the dismal science : 
' My satire is against those who see figures and 
averages, and nothing else — the representatives 
of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this 
time — the men who, through long years to 
come, will do more to damage the really useful 
truths of political economy than I could do (if 
I tried) in my whole life — the addled heads who 
would take the average of cold in the Crimea 
during twelve months as a reason for clothing 
a soldier in nankeen on a night when he would 
be frozen to death in fur — and who would com- 
fort the laborer, in travelling twelve miles a day 
to and from his work, by telling him that the 
average distance of one inhabited place from an- 
other on the whole area of England is not 
more than four miles. Bah ! what have you 
to do with these ?' " 

An amusing parody or skit on the tale by the 
late Robert Brough appeared in " Our Miscel- 
lany," a work the joint production of that la- 
mented writer and Mr. Edmund Yates. At the 
Strand Theatre, in the August following, a ver- 
sion was placed on the stage, and was well re- 
ceived, all the melancholy parts being cut out, 
and all the humor heightened as much as possi- 
ble ! the denouement being somewhat different 
to Mr. Dickens's ! The new bill for closing 
the public-houses creating great excitement 
and discussion at the time, Mr. Gradgrind was 
made to exhibit strong animosity and hostility 
to the proposed measure. It may be mention- 
ed that an adaptation was performed at Astley's 
Theatre, with the title of "Under the Earth; 
or, the Sons of Toil," as recently as April and 
May, 1867. 

It was in this year, on the 13th of March, 
that Dickens lost his dear friend. Sir Thomas 
Noon Talfourd — better known as Serjeant Tal- 
fourd, the friend of Charles Lamb, and of many 
other eminent men of letters in his day. 
That Dickens keenly felt the loss, we know 
from various passages in the life of his deceased 
friend. How beautiful is this description of the 
dead man's virtues — how delicately are his 
graces dwelt upon ! % 

" The chief delight of his life was to give de- 
light to others. His nature was so exquisitely 
kind, that to be kind was his highest happiness. 
Those who had the privilege of seeing him in 
his own home, when his public successes were 
greatest — so modest, so contented with little 
things, so interested in humble persons and 
humble effbrts, so surrounded by children and 
young people, so adored in remembrance of a 



u 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



69 



domestic generosity and greatness of heart too 
sacred to be unveiled here, can never forget the 
pleasure of that sight." 

" The Seven Poor Travellers " formed the 
title of the Christmas number for 1854:. It 
was one of the most popular of the series of 
Christmas stories. The idea was that Dickens 
had staid one Christmas-eve at the Poor Trav- 
eller's House at Rochester (founded by good 
old Richard Watts *) in company with six poor 
travellers, and entertained them with roast beef, 
turkey, and punch from the neighboring inn, 
when each in turn told a story. His own, the 
history of Richard Doubledick, is one of the 
most impressive and beautiful stories ever writ- 
ten. 

On January 15th following, he presided, at 
the London Tavern, at the Annual Dinner of 
the Commercial Travellers' School at Wan- 
stead. This was the occasion when he made a 
most amusing and sprightly speech upon "Com- 
mercials." On 27th June, in the same year, 
he delivered a telling speech upon " Reform " 
at Drury Lane Theatre. 

It was during this year, in July, that the 
rauch-talked-of private theatricals at Campden 
House were set on foot by Dickens, for the ben- 
efit of the Brompton Consumption Hospital. 
The piece performed was the "Light-house," 
a thrilling melodrama, written by Mr. Wilkie 
Collins. Dickens took the part of Aaron Gur- 

* The house appointed for the reception of the poor 
travellers is situated on the north side of the High 
Street, adjoining to the custom-house, and is probably 
the original building. A very considerable sum was 
expended by the mayor and citizens on its repair in 
17T1. Agreeably to the benevolent design of the do- 
nor, poor travellers have lodging and four-pence each ; 
and that this charity may be more generally known, 
the following inscription is fixed over the door : 

"EICHARD WATTS, ESQ., 

BT HIS WILL DATED 22 AUG., 1579, 

lOITNDED THIS OHAEITY, 

FOE SIX POCK TKAVELLEES, 

WHO, KOT BELNG KOGTIES, OK PkOCTORS, 

mat receive gratis, eoe one night, 

Lodging, Entertainment, 

and four-pence each. 

In TESTIMONY OP HIS MUNIFICENCE, 

IN HONOR OF HIS MeMORY, 
ANT) INDUCEMENT TO HIS ExAMPLE, 

NATHi- HOOD, Esq., the present Mayor, 

HAS caused this stone, 

gratefully to be renewed 

and inscribed, 

A.D. 1771." 

The History of Rocliester, 1772. 

By direction of the Court of Chancery, the large in- 
come derived from the property bequeathed for the 
support of the house (being now .£3500 per annum) 
was, in pursuance of a scheme settled in 1S55, applied 
in building of almshouses for ten men and ten women. 
The result has been the erection of a splendid edifice, 
in the Elizabethan style, with two magnificent gate- 
ways. 



nock^ the old light-house-keeper, to perfection ; 
Miss Dickens representing Phcebe; Mr. Egg, a 
rough Sailor; and Mr. Mark Lemon, Jacob 
Bell. 

In October, 1855 — prior to his departure to 
America — a dinner was given to Mr. Thacke- 
ray at the London Tavern, of which one who 
was present gave the following account : ' ' The 
Thackeray dinner was a triumph. Covers, we 
are assured, were laid for sixty ; and sixty and 
no more sat down precisely at the minute 
named to do honor to the great novelist. Six- 
ty very hearty shakes of the hand did Thacke- 
ray receive from sixty friends on that occasion ; 
and hearty cheers from sixty vociferous and 
friendly tongues followed the Chairman's (Mr. 
Charles Dickens's) proposal of his health, and 
of wishes for his speedy and successful return 
among us. Dickens was never happiei*. He 
spoke as if he was fully conscious that it was a 
great occasion, and that the absence of even one 
reporter was a matter of congratulation, afford- 
ing ampler room to unbend. The table was in 
the shape of a horse-shoe, haying two Vice- 
Chairmen ; and this circumstance was wrought 
up and played with by Dickens in the true Sam 
Weller and Charles Dickens manner. Thack- 
eray, who is far from what is called a good 
speaker, outdid himself. There was his usual 
hesitation ; but this hesitation becomes his 
manner of speaking and his matter, and is nev- 
er unpleasant to his hearers, though it is, we 
are assured, most irksome to himself. This 
speech was full of pathos, and humor, and odd- 
ity, with bits of prepared parts imperfectly rec- 
ollected, but most happily made good by the 
felicities of the passing moment. Like the 
' Last Minstrel ' — 

'Each blank in faithless memory void, 
The poet's glowing thought supplied.' 

It was a speech to remember for its earnestness 
of purpose and its undoubted originality. Then 
the Chairman quitted, and many near and at a 
distance quitted with him. Thackeray was on 
the move with the Chairman, when, inspired 
by the moment, Jerrold took the chair, and 
Thackeray remained. Who is to chronicle 
what now passed ? — what passages of wit — 
what neat and pleasant sarcastic speeches in 
proposing healths — what varied and pleasant, 
aye, and at times, sarcastic acknowledgments? 
Up to the time when Dickens left, a good re- 
porter might have given all, and with ease, to 
future ages ; but there could be no reporting 
what followed. There were words too nimble 
and too full of flame for a dozen Gurneys, all 

Few will forget 



ears, to catch and preserve. 



70 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



that night. There was an ' air of wit ' about 
the room for three days after. Enough to 
make the two next companies, though down- 
right fools, right witty." 

The ensuing month an appeal was made on 
behalf of Johnson's god-daughter, signed by 
nineteen eminent literary men, including Dick- 
ens, Hallam, Disraeli, Carlyle, Thackeray, Mil- 
man, and Macaulay. A large sum of money 
was raised, but the recipient did not live many 
years to enjoy the annuity secured for her, and 
this quaint advertisement appeared in the 
"Times" of the 18th of January, 18G0 : 

" On the 1.5th in St., at No. 5 Minerva Place, Ilatcham, 
S.E., Ann Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Mau- 
ritius Lowe, Esq., of the Royal Academy, Gold Medal- 
list, and god-daughter of the late Samuel Johnson, 
LL.D., aged 82." ^ 

" The Late Samuel Johnson^ LL.D.^^^ sounds 
strange in these days ! 

Another appeal to aid in a philantliropic 
cause was made to our author in the Christmas 
week, and again he expressed his readiness to 
assist. 

He read his " Christmas Carol " to an im- 
mense audience at the Mechanics' Institute, 
Sheffield, in aid of its funds, and we are told in 
the papers of the time that at the termination 
the Mayor presented him with a very handsome 
table service of cutlery, including, we are fur- 
ther told, with a circumstantiality wliich is 
amusing — "a pair offish-carvers, and a couple 
of razors," in the name of the inhabitants, for 
his generous help and assistance. In thanking 
him, Dickens said that, in an earnest desire to 
leave imaginative and popular literature some- 
thing more closely associated than he found it, 
at once with the private homes and the public 
rights of the English people, "he should be 
faithful to death."* 

This Christmas the celebrated number, en- 
titled " The Holly-Tree Inn," came out. The 
best story in it — of course by Dickens — was 
"The Boots," a charming sketch, the writing 
delightfully fresh and vivid. It recorded the 
droll adventures of a young gentleman of the 
tender age of eight running off with his sweet- 
heart, aged seven, to Gretna Green. 

Mr. Johnstone dramatized it for the Strand 
Theatre, and, we may mention, it was the means 
of introducing the now celebrated Miss Herbert 

* Dickens, in a letter to Charles Knight, in 1844, 
alluding to the appearance of "Knight's Weekly Vol- 
umes," wrote him : 

"If I can ever be of the feeblest use in advancing a 
project so intimately connected with an end on which 
my heart is set — the liberal education of the people — 
I shall be sincerely glad. All good wishes and suc- 
cess attend you." 



to the London boards. A much better version 
was produced at the Adelphi, Mr. Benjamin 
"Webster playing, with all those peculiar and 
delicate touches of nature he is capable of, the 
ruleofCobbs, "the Boots." 



CHAPTER XXII. 






"LITTLE DORRIT. — TAVISTOCK HOUSE TIIEAT- [ 
RICALS. 

The leading events in our author's career 
from the time we now begin to approach will 
be fresh in the memories of most readers. In 
the Cliristmas week of this year the first num- \ 
ber of " Little Dorrit" appeared, and on its com- 
pletion, twenty months later, was issued by 
Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, with illustrations by 
" Phiz," and dedicated to Clarkson Stanfield, 
R.A., the eminent landscape-painter. This 
work was written with the express intention of 
showing the procrastination and formal routine 
of the Government administration of business, 
happily designated as "The Circumlocution 
Office," and the Tite Barnacle's family, who 
impede the machinery by their inefficiency and 
supercilious know-nothing propensities. 

Soon after it was published. Lord Lytton un- 
wittingly furnished a specimen of the mode in 
which the dispatch of public business is con- 
ducted. Receiving an important deputation at 
the Colonial Office (when he was Minister), it 
appeared that, though a memorial had been sent 
in, and due notice given, he had heard nothing 
of the matter till five minutes before, if indeed he 
had heard of it at all ; in explanation of which 
he somewhat naively remarked that in such of- 
fices "papers of importance passed through sev- 
eral departments, and required time for inspec- 
tion — first they were sent to the Emigration 
Board, then to another office, and then to the 
Secretary of State, who might refer it to some 
other department." One can not fail to ob- 
serve the extreme vagueness of the final rest- 
ing-place of the unfortunate document : ^'- some 
other department." What other department? 
This is what Mr. Clennam and his mechanical 
partner were always " wanting to know." 

The work met with an immense sale in the 
serial form, but it is not now so popular as some 
of the other works of Mr. Dickens. The story 
was dramatized, and well represented at the 
Strand Theatre. 

We come now to note Dickens's change of resi- 
dence from Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, 
to Gad's Hill Place, Kent, or, as the great man 
himself always wrote it, with that amplitude 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



71 



and unmistakable clearness which made him 
write, not only the day of the month, but the 
day of the week, in full at the head of his let- 
ters — Gad's Hill Place, Hiyham hy Rochester', 
Kent. How he came to live here is pleasantly 
told by a friend.* 

"Though not born at Rochester, Mr. Dick- 
ens spent some portion of his boyhood there ; 
and was wont to tell how his father the late 
Mr. John Dickens, in the course of a country 
ramble, pointed out to him as a child the house 
at Gad's Hill Place, saying, 'There, my boy ; 
if you work and mind your book, you will, per- 
haps, one day live in a house like that.' This 
speech sunk deep, and in after years, and in the 
course of his many long pedestrian rambles 
through the lanes and roads of the pleasant 
Kentish country, Mr. Dickens came to regard 
this Gad's Hill House lovingly, and to wish 
himself its possessor. This seemed an impos- 
sibility. The property was so held that there 
was no likelihood of its ever coming into the 
market ; and so Gad's Hill came to be alluded 
to jocularly, as representing a fancy which was 
pleasant enough in dream-land, but would nev- 
er be realized. 

" Meanwhile the years rolled on, and Gad's 
Hill became almost forgotten. Then a further 
lapse of time, and Mr. Dickens felt a strong 
wish to settle in the country, and determined to 
let Tavistock House. About this time, and by 
the strangest coincidences, his intimate friend 
and close ally, Mr. W. H. Wills, chanced to sit 
next to a lady at a London dinner-party, who 
remarked, in the course of conversation, that a 
house and grounds had come into her possession 
of which she wanted to dispose. The reader 
will guess the rest. The house was in Kent, 
was not far from Rochester, had this and that 
distinguishing feature which made it like Gad's 
Hill and like no other place ; and the upshot 
of Mr. Wills's dinner-table chitchat with a lady 
whom he had never met before was, that 
Charles Dickens realized the dream of his 
youth, and became the possessor of Gad's Hill." 
The purchase was made in the spring of 1856. 

In the " Uncommercial Traveller," under the 
head of " Travelling Abroad," No. VIL, Dick- 
ens makes this mention of it : 

" So smooth was the old high-road, and so 
fresh were the horses, and so fast went I, that 
it was midway between Gravesend and Roches- 
ter, and the widening river was bearing the ships, 
white-sailed, or black-smoked, out to sea, when 
I noticed by the way-side a very queer small 
boy. 

* "Daily News," 15tli June, 1870. 



"'Hallo!' said I to the very queer small 
boy, 'where do you live ?' 

'"At Chatham,' says he. 

" ' What do you do there ?' says I. 

" 'I go to school,' says he. 

"I took him up in a moment, and we went 
on. 

"Presently the very queer small boy says, 
' This is Gad's Hill we are coming to, where 
Falstaff went out to rob those travellers and ran 
away.' 

" 'You know something about Falstaff, eh?' 
said I. 

" 'All about him,' said the very queer small 
boy. • 

" 'I am old (I am nine) and I read all sorts 
of books. But do let us stop at the top of the 
hill and look at the house there, if you please !' 

" ' You admire that house?' said I. 

" 'Bless you, sir!' said the very queer small 
boy, ' when I was not more than half as old as 
nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought 
to look at it. And now I am nine, I come by 
myself to look at it. And ever since I can rec- 
ollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has 
often said to me, " If you were to be very perse- 
vering and were to work hard, you might some 
day come to live in it." Though that's impos- 
sible !' said the v4|ry queer small boy, drawing a 
low breath, and now staring at the house out of 
window with all his might. 

"I was rather amazed to be told this by the 
very queer small boy, for that house happens to 
be my house, and I have reason to believe that 
what he said was true." 

Of " Gad's Hill's haunted greenness," a mod- 
ern poet well says : 

"There is a subtle spirit in Its air; 
The very soul of humor homes it there ; 
So is it now : of old so has it been ; 
Shakspeare from off it caught the rarest scene 

That ever shook with laughs the sides of Care ; 

Falstaff's fine instinct for a Prince grew where 

That hill — what years since! — show'd its Kentish 

green. 

Fit home for England's world-loved Dickens." 

Before Dickens left Tavistock House, where 
he had resided for many years, and where "Bleak 
House" and "Little Dorrit" were written, he 
gave some dramatic performances which elicited 
the warmest praise from those who had the good 
fortune to be present. A large room had been 
fitted up with stage, scenery, and foot-lights, and 
his friend Wilkie Collins had written an entire- 
ly new drama of the most romantic character 
for the occasion. The title was "The Frozen 
Deep," and the rigors of the Arctic regions were 
scenically portrayed by Clarkson Stanfield, R. A., 
and Mr. Danson. The followinir rough outline 



72 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



will give some idea of the piece as then perform- 
ed. First, there was a beautiful scene in Kent, 
painted by Mr. Telbin, in which the members of 
the family of Captain Ebsworth and Lieutenants 
Crayford and Steventon, who are on board cer- 
tain vessels engaged in an expedition at the 
North Pole, are assembled, and disclose the 
sufferings and the suspense by which they are 
agonized during the absence of their rela- 
tives. These consist of five young ladies — Mrs. 
Steventon (Miss Helen), Rose Ebsworth (Miss 
Kate), Lucy Crayford (Miss HogartJi), Clara 
Burnham (Miss Mary), and the Nurse Esther 
(Mrs. Wills), with their Maid (Miss Martha). 
Clara Burnham has two lovers — one Richard 
Wardour, performed by Mr, Charles iJickens 
himself, and the other Frank Aldersley (Mr. 
Wilkie Collins), to whom she is engaged. The 
former has vowed a terrible vengeance against 
his rival. And now that they are both on the 
Polar Seas together, Clara's fears are awakened, 
and haunt her imagination continually. To 
deepen the impression still more, Nurse Esther 
pretends to second-sight, and predicts the most 
fatal catastrophe. 

Doubts are entertained of the character of 
Wardour from his strange conduct. This arises 
from "the pangs of despised love," with which 
his heart still wrestles. Asfy^et he knows not 
who his rival may be, and does not suspect that 
he dwells in the same hut with him. Lieuten- 
ant Crayford, a bluff, hearty sailor (Mark Lem- 
on), takes a strong interest in him, and believes 
in him, and believes in his inherent goodness. 
But at length his faith gives way ; for, in a 
well-managed conversation, he penetrates the 
state of Wardour's soul, and forms of his tend- 
encies the most awful judgment. Soon after 
Wardour makes the discovery that Aldersley is 
his rival, and his resolution is formed to accom- 
plish the vengeance on which he had so long 
brooded. We next find all the party, with the 
young ladies, on the shore of Newfoundla.nd. 
But Wardour and Aldersley are for a while 
missing, and Crayford is haunted with a horri- 
ble suspicion that the latter has been made the 
victim of the former. Wardour in rags, wild 
as a maniac, rushes into the cave. He claims 
food and drink, part of which he takes, and 
carefully preserves the rest in a wallet. Cray- 
ford at last recognizes him — endeavors to seize 
him — but the madman dashes away, soon to re- 
turn with poor exhausted Aldersley in his arms. 
He had become the preserver of the man whom 
he had seduced to the most desolate spots on the 
Arctic snows for the purpose of destroying. 
He makes full reparation for his intended crime ; 
and, ere his death, blesses the union of Clara 



Burnham and Frank Aldersley. Dickens's 
personation of Wardour required the best acting 
of a well-practised performer. His acting sur- 
prised all who witnessed it. The character was 
a fervid, powerful, and distinct individuality ; 
not unlike, in some respects, Mr. B. Webster's 
tragic impersonations. Mrs. Inchbald's farce of 
" Animal Magnetism " concluded the evening's 
amusements, Mr. Dickens acting the Doctor, and 
Mr. Mark Lemon Pedrillo. 

On the Wednesday following, Buckstone's 
well-known farce of "Uncle John" was per- 
formed, Mr. Dickens acting the vigorous old 
gentleman of seventy to perfection. Represen- 
tations subsequently took place at the Gallery 
of Illustration, and at the Free Trade Hall, 
Manchester, for charitable purposes. On the 
27th October, 1864, it was publicly produced at 
the Olympic Theatre, and met with a very en- 
thusiastic reception. 

The death of Douglas Jerrold, in June, 18G7, 
was keenly felt by Dickens. The two friends 
had been dn the most intimate terms for many 
years, as the few extracts we have already given 
from pleasant letters will show. The funeral 
was at Norwood Cemetery. The coffin was of 
plain oak, and on each side were the initials 
" D. J." The pall-bearers were Charles Dick- 
ens, W. M. Thackeray, Charles Knight, Horace 
Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Monckton Milnes (Lord 
Houghton), and Mr. Bradbury. A great gath- 
ering of artists and literary men surrounded the 
grave. 

With his usual thoughtfulness and practical 
kindness, he soon ascertained the position in 
which poor Mrs. Jerrold, the widow, had been 
left. He found, as he had really suspected — 
for few men of letters were such good business 
men as Dickens — that a helping hand would be 
necessary, and he then, in conjunction with 
Mark Lemon, Albert Smith, Arthur Smith, and 
other friends, formed a committee to raise a 
fund, which was to be known as the "Jerrold 
Fund." 

"Dickens entered warmly into the matter," 
remarks one who knew him ; " and on the day 
of Jerrold's funeral, after dining with two or 
three friends, of whom the informant was one, 
at the Garrick Club, drew up the programme of 
a series of entertainments, which was that same 
night taken round to the editors of the various 
newspapers for insertion." Arthur Smith was 
the honorary secretary, and an entertainment, 
including the performance of "The Frozen 
Deep," was given at the Egyptian Hall, on 4th 
July, at which the Queen, Prince Albert, and 
the royal family were present. Other perform- 
ances took place elsewhere, and readings were 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



73 



given by Thackeray and Dickens at St. Mar- 
tin's Hall, and a large sum of money was the 
result. 

The occasion for these charitable perform- 
ances excited considerable outcry and disappro- 
bation in literary circles, Jerrold being esteemed 
to be a prosperous man, as he received a very 
large salary as editor of ' Lloyd's Weekly News- 
paper." Dickens and Arthur Smith at once 
communicated to the papers the result of their 
labors, viz., the purchase of an annuity for the 
widow and her unmarried daughter, and added 
that they had considered their personal respon- 
sibility a sufficient refutation to any untrue or 
preposterous statements that had obtained circu- 
lation as to property asserted to have been left 
by Mr. Jerrold, and that unless they had thor- 
oughly known, and heyond all doubt assured 
themselves, that their exertions were needed by 
the dearest objects of Mr. Jerrold's love, those 
exertions would never have been heard of. 
Lord Palmerston, it may be added, granted to 
the widow an annual pension of £100 out of the 
Civil List. 

It was at the anniversary dinner of the Ware- 
housemen and Clerks' Schools, held in Novem- 
ber of this year, that Dickens made his well- 
known speech upon "Schools," when he told 
' his hearers of all the schools he did not like, 
and, after a long enumeration of these, he de- 
scribed to them the one he did like. 

The Christmas number of " Household 
Words" was entitled "Perils of certain Eng- 
lish Prisoners," and was founded on the In- 
dian Mutiny. It was in three chapters, ' ' The 
Island of Silver Store," "The Prison in the 
Woods," and "The Rafts on the River," sup- 
posed to be narrated by Gilbert Davis, private 
in the Royal Marines. It is, as may be remem- 
bered, full of the most exciting adventures. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

WORKS TRANSLATED INTO TRENCH. — DICKENS 
AND TpACKERAT. 

During this year a complete and authorized 
edition of Dickens's novels was published in 
France, beginning with "Vie et Aventures de 
Nicholas Nickleby." To this the author add- 
ed this introductory address to the French pub- 
lic : 

"For a long time I have wished to see a 
uniform and complete translation of my works 
into French. Hitherto, less fortunate in France 
than in Germany, I have not been made known 
to French readers who are not familiar with 



the English language, except by isolated and 
partial translations, published without my au- 
thority and control, and from which I have de- 
rived no personal advantage. The present pub- 
lication has been proposed to me by MM. 
Hachette & Co., and by M. Charles Lahure, in 
terms which do honor to their elevated, liberal, 
and generous character. It has been executed 
with great care ; and the numerous difficulties 
it presents have been vanquished with uncom- 
mon ability, intelligence, and perseverance. I 
am proud of being thus presented to the French 
people, whom I sincerely love and honor." 

It must have been a great source of satisfac- 
tion to him to have known that not only in 
Western Europe and America were his books, 
with their kindly teachings and influences for 
good, widely read by the common people, but 
that as far away as Russia there existed a trans- 
lation of Dickens's works, all of which are very 
popular. 

"Who among us" — exclaims a writer in 
" Vedomoste," one of the leading journals of 
St. Petersburg — " does not know the genius — 
who has not read the novels of Dickens ? There 
was a time when the Russian translators of for- 
eign novels did almost nothing else than trans- 
late the charming productions of Boz ! The 
journals and newspapers rivalled each other in 
being the first to communicate his last work. 
Every word he wrote was offered to the Rus- 
sian reading community in five or six different 
periodicals, and as soon as the concluding part 
of each of his novels appeared in England a 
variety of St. Petersburg and Moscow editions 
bore the fame of Dickens over all the East of 
Europe. Every scrap of Dickens " — exclaims 
the Northern critic with the keen appetite of 
his climate — "has been devoured. With the 
sole exception of Walter Scott, none among the 
English novelists has enjoyed such an enormous 
and prolonged success as Dickens." 

And since his death long obituary notices 
of him have been given in the Italian papers. 
The " Diritto " thinks that Sam Weller and the 
"modern Tartuffe," in "Martin Chuzzlewit," 
will be immortal, like Perpetua and Don Ab- 
bondio in Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi," which 
have become popular types of character. The 
" Nazione " speaks of the deceased as the great- 
est of modern English novelists. " He was," 
it adds, "for five-and-thirty years, at once the 
most esteemed novelist and the greatest social 
reformer of his fellow-countrymen. There will 
be monuments to him in marble and bronze, 
but his finest monument will be the good he did 
for the poorer classes." 

In March of this year Dickens visited Edin- 



74 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



burgh to read his " Christmas Carol " to upwards 
of two thousand members of the Philosophical 
Institute there. After the reading was over, 
the Lord Provost presented him with a splendid 
silver wassail bowl. Dickens, in replying said : 
"The first great public recognition and encour- 



ticle in "All the Year Round"— entitled "Dr. 
Johnson from a Scottish Point of View " — 
Dickens said : "By all means let me have the 
paper proposed ; but, in handling Johnson, be 
pleasant with the Scottish people, because I love 
them" 




A STITDY OF DICKENS'S CHAEA.0TEE8 BEAWN BY " PHIZ " — HABLOT K. BEOWNE, 
The original delineator of Charles Dickens's principal characters. 



agement I ever received was bestowed on me by 
your generous and magnificent city. To come 
to Edinburgh is to me like coming home." 
And in a recent letter to the writer of an ar- 



A few days after, on the 29th of March, 
Thackeray, supported by Dickens and other 
literary men, presided at the Royal General ' 
Theatrical Fund Dinner at the Freemasons' 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



75 



Tavern ; and, in proposing the health of the 
Chairman, Dickens took occasion to bear his 
testimony to the goodness, the self-denial, and 
the self-respect of the actors of England, and 
passed a very flattering encomium upon the 
Chairman's works: "It is not for me, at this 
time and in this place," he saidf "to take on 
myself to flutter before you the well-thumbed 
pages of Mr. Thackeray's books, and to tell you 
to obsei*ve how full they are of wit and wisdom, 
how out-speaking, and how devoid of fear or 
favor they are. * * * The bright and airy 
pages of 'Vanity Fair.' * * * To this skillful 
showman, who has so often delighted us, and 
who has charmed us again to-night, we have 
now to wish God-speed, and that he may con- 
tinue for many years to exercise his potent art. 
To him fill a bumper toast, and fervently utter 
God bless him !" 

Alas ! the "many years " were to be barely 
six ! In 1864 the speaker himself wrote some 
memorial pages commemorative of his illustrious 
friend in the deceased author's own "Cornhill 
Magazine." 

So much interest had been shown by the pub- 
lic in Mr. Dickens's performance of his part of 
the " Jerrold Fund" programme, that he now 
determined to give his readings professionally, 
and as an avowed source of income. It was on 
the evening of Thursday, the 29th of April, 1858, 
that he appeared in St. Martin's Hall (now con- 
verted into the New Queen's Theatre) for the 
first time, as a source of personal profit to him- 
self. 

We may mention that on the 25th of the fol- 
lowing month one of the assistants in the Li- 
brary at the British Museum, M. Louis Augistin 
Prevost, a great linguist, died. It was he who 
imparted instruction in the French tongue to 
Dickens. 

We come now to a painful matter, which oc- 
casioned a great talk at the time, and led Mr. 
Dickens's warmest friends to marvel at the 
course he had thought fit to pursue. 

It appears that some domestic unhappiness in 
the great novelist's family had occasioned the 
usual gossip out of doors, and these "rumors and 
slanders " — as he energetically termed the whis- 
perings that were so repugnant to him — led to 
his inserting a manifesto on the front page of 
"Household Words."* 

All the newspapers and journals copied it, 
with various comments — in some cases exceed- 
ingly rancorous and spiteful — and various long 
letters and documents from friends on both sides 
appeared in the public journals. The simple 

* Juue 12 th. 



explanation was, that a misunderstanding had 
arisen between Mr. and Mrs. Dickens, of a pure- 
ly domestic character — so domestic — almost triv- 
ial, indeed — that neither law nor friendly arbi- 
tration could define or fix the difficulty sufficient- 
ly clear to adjudicate upon it. All we can say 
is, that it was a very great pity that a purely 
family dispute should have been brought before 
the public, and, saying thus much, we trust the 
reader will think we act wisely in dropping any 
further mention of it. 

That Mr. Dickens loves hiS home, and that his 
domestic tastes were very strong, there is abun- 
dant proof. Hawthorne, in his " English Dia- 
ry," has a passage apropos of this : " Mr. Dick- 
ens mentioned how he preferred home enjoy- 
ments to all others, and did not willingly go much 
into society. Mrs. Dickens, too, the other day 
told us of his taking on himself all possible 
trouble as regards their domestic aflairs." 

It is somewhat singular that on the very day 
when Mr. Dickens's personal explanation ap- 
peared in " Household Words," on that very 
day (12th June, 1858) a paper, also of a person- 
al character, but concerning our author's distin- 
guished contemporary, Mr. W. M. Thackeray, 
appeared in a little journal called "Town Talk ;" 
both articles eventually acquiring a painful no- 
toriety, and the latter occasioning an unhappy 
difl'erence between the two great men. The 
article which occasioned so much pain to Mr. 
Thackeray professed to give an account of the 
author of "Vanity Fair" — his appearance, his 
career, and his success. The article was coarse 
and offensive in tone, but it was notorious that 
the periodical was edited by a clever writer of 
the day, well known to Mr. Thackeray as a 
brother member of a club to which he belonged. 
As such, the subject of the attack felt himself 
compelled to take notice of it. This is a speci- 
men of the article : 

"His Appeauance. 
"Mr. Thackeray is forty-six years old, though, from 
the silvery whiteness of his hair, he appears some- 
what older. He is very tall, standing upwards of six 
feet two inches. His face is bloodless, and not par- 
ticularly expressive, but remarkable for the fracture 
of the bridge of the nose, the result of an accident in 
youth. His bearing is cold and uninviting, his style 
of conversation either openly cynical or affectedly 
good-natured and benevolent ; his honhomieis, forced, 
his wit biting, his pride easily touched. 

"His Sttooess. 

"No one succeeds better than Mr. Thackeray in cut- 
ting his coat according to his cloth. * * * Our owu 
opinion is, that his success is on the wane." 

Two days later Mr. Thackeray addressed the 
assumed writer of this article in a manly but in- 
dignant letter. 

Subsequently Mr. Thackeray, "rather (he 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



said) than have any further correspondence with 
the writer of the character," determined to sub- 
mit the letters which had passed between them 
to the committee of the club. The committee 
accordingly met, and decided that the writer of 
the attack complained of was bound to make an 
ample apology, or to retire from the club. The 
latter contested the right of the committee 
to interfere. Suits at law and proceedings in 
Chancery against the committee were threaten- 
ed, when Mr. Dickens, who was also a member 
of the club, interfered, with the following letter : 



'I 



"Tavistbck House, Tavistock Square, 

Loudon, W.C., Wednesday 
24th November, 1S5S, 

" My dear Thackeray, — Without a word 
of prelude, I wish this note to revert to a subject 
on which I said six words to you at the Athenas- 
um when I last saw you. 

*' Coming home from my country work, I 
find Mr. Edwin James's opinion taken on this 
painful question of the Garrick and Mr. Ed- 
mund Yates. I find it strong on the illegality 
of the Garrick proceeding. Kot to complicate 
this note, or give it a formal appearance, I for- 
bear from copying the opinion ; but I have 
asked to see it, and I have it, and I want to 
make no secret from you of a word of it. 

"I find Mr. Edwin James retained on the 
one side ; I hear and read of the Attorney-Gen- 
eral being retained on the other. Let me, in 
this state of things, ask you a plain question : 

"Can any conference be held between me, 
as representing Mr. Yates, and an appointed 
friend of yours, as representing you, with the 
hope and purpose of some quiet accommodation 
of this deplorable matter, which will satisfy the 
feelings of all concerned ? 

"It is right that, in putting this to you, I 
should tell you that Mr. Yates, when you first 
wrote to him, brought your letter to me. He 
had recently done me a manly service I can never 
forget, in some private distress of mine (gener- 
ally within your knowledge), and he naturally 
thought of me as his friend in an emergency. 
I told him that his article was not to be defend- 
ed ; but I confirmed him in his opinion that it 
was not reasonably possible for him to set right 
what was amiss, on the receipt of a letter couch- 
ed in the very strong terms you had employed. 
When you appealed to the Garrick committee 
and they called their general meeting, I said 
at that meeting that you and I had been on 
good terms for many years, and that I was very 
sorry to find myself opposed to you ; but that I 
was clear that the committee had nothing on 
earth to do with it, and that in the strength of 
my conviction I should go against them. 



' "If this mediation that I have suggested can 
take place, I shall be heartily glad to do my 
best in it — and, God knows, in no hostile spirit 
towards any one, least of all to you. If it can 
not take place, the thing is at least no worse 
, than it was ; and you will burn this letter, and 
j I will burn ^ur answer. 

" Yours faithfully, Charles Dickens. 
" W. M. TuACKERAY, Esq." 

To this Mr. Thackeray replied : 

" 30 Onslow Square, 26th November, 1S58. 
"Dear Dickens, — I grieve to gather from 
your letter that you were Mr. Yates's adviser in 
the dispute between me and him. His letter 
was the cause of my appeal to the Garrick Club 
for protection from insults against which I had 
no other remedy. 

" I placed my grievance before the committee 
of the club as the only place where I have been 
accustomed to meet Mr. Yates. They gave 
their opinion of his conduct, and of the rejjara- 
tion which lay in his power. Not satisfied with 
their sentence, Mr. Yates called for a general 
meeting ; and, the meeting which he had called 
having declared against him, he declines the 
jurisdiction which he had asked for, and says 

I he will have recourse to lawyers. 

"You say that Mr. Edwin James is strongly 
of opinion that the conduct of the club is illegal. 
On this point I can give no sort of judgment ; 
nor can I conceive that the club will be fright- 

' ened, by the opinion of any lawyer, out of their 

I own sense of the justice and honor which ought 
to obtain among gentlemen. 

I " Ever since I submitted my case to the club, 
I have haS, and can have, no part in the dis- 
pute. It is for them to judge if any recon- 
cilement is possible with your friend. I sub- 
join the copy of a letter* which I wrote to 

* The iuclosure referred to was as follows : 

" Onslow Square, November 28, 1858. 

"Gentlemen, — I have this day received a communi- 
cation from Mr. Charles Dickens relative to the dispute 
which has been so long pending, in which he says : 

" ' Can any conference be held between me, as rep- 
resenting Mr. Yates, and any appointed friend of 
yours, as representing you, in the hope and purpose 
of some quiet accommodation of this deplorable mat- 
i ter, which will satisfy the feelings of all parties ?' 
I "I have written to Mr. Dickens to say that, since 
1 the commencement of this business, I have placed 
myself entirely in the hands of the committee of the 
: Garrick, and am still, as ever, prepared to abide by 
! any decision at which they may arrive on the subject 
I conceive I can not, if I would, make the dispute once i 
more personal, or remove it out of the court to which 1 1 
I submitted it for arbitration. 

"If you can devise any peaceful means for ending 
it, no one will be better pleased than 

" Your obliged faithful servant, 
I " W. M. Thackeeat. 

j "The Committee of the Gaeeick Club." 



I 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



77 



tbe committee, and refer you to them for the 
issue. 

"Yours, etc., W. M. Thackekay. 

" C. DioKEKS, Esq." 

It would be in vain to attempt to conceal that 
this painful affair left a coolness between Mr. 
Thackeray and his brother novelist. Mr. 
Thackeray, smarting under the elaborate and 
unjust attack, portions of which were copied 
and widely circulated in other journals, could 
not but regard the friend and adviser of his 
critic as in some degree associated with it ; and 
Mr. Dickens, on the other hand, naturally hurt 
at finding his offer of arbitration rejected, gave 
the letters to the original author of the trouble 
for publication, with the remark — "As the re- 
ceiver of my letter did not respect the confi- 
dence in which it addressed him, there can be 
none left for you to violate. I send you what 
I wrote to Mr. Thackeray, and what he wrote 
to me, and you are at perfect liberty to print 
the two." Thus, for a while, ended this painful 
affair. Headers of Disraeli's " Quarrels of Au- 
thors " will miss in it those sterner features of the 
dissensions between literary men as they were 
conducted in the old times ; but none can con- 
template this difference between the two great 
masters of fiction of our day with other than 
feelings of regret for the causes which led to it. 

It is pleasing, however, to learn that the dif- 
ferences between them were ended before Mr. 
Thackeray's death. Singularly enough, this 
happy circumstance occurred only a few days 
before the time when it would have been too 
late. The two great authors met by accident 
in the lobby of a club. They suddenly turned 
and saw each other, and the unrestrained im- 
pulse of both was to hold out the hand of for- 
giveness and fellowship. With that hearty 
grasp the difference which estranged them 
ceased forever. This must have been a great 
consolation to Mr. Dickens when he saw his 
great brother laid in the earth at Kensal Green ; 
and no one who read the beautiful and affect- 
ing article on Thackeray, from the hand of Mr, 
Dickens, which appeared in the " Cornhill Mag- 
azine," can doubt that all trace of this painful 
affair had then vanished. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

KOYAL DRAMATIC COLLEGE. — "ALL THE TEAK 
ROUND." 

We turn now to a more pleasant theme. 
On the 21st July, 1858, a public meeting was 
held at the Princess's Theatre, for the purpose 



of establishing the now famous Royal Dramatic 
College. Mr. Charles Kean was the Chairman, 
and Dickens delivered one of his excellent 
speeches on a topic ever dear to him — the the- 
atrical profession. Charles Kean was then con- 
ducting his Shakspearian revivals — those splen- 
did pageantries and archaeological displays which 
we all remember at this theatre twelve years ago 
— and Dickens, with his usual tact, turned the 
circumstance to account in his speech. The 
play then being performed was the "Merchant 
of Venice," and, in concluding, the speaker re- 
marked, "I could not but reflect, while Mr. 
Kean was speaking, that in an hour or two from 
this time, the spot upon which we are now as- 
sembled will be transformed into the scene of a 
crafty and a cruel bond. I know that a few 
hours hence the Grand Canal of Venice will 
flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the very spot 
whei'e I now stand dryshod, and that the ' qual- 
ity of mercy ' will be beautifully stated to the 
Venetian Council by a learned young doctor 
from Padua, on these very boards on which 
we now enlarge upon the quality of charity and 
sympathy. Knowing this, it came into my 
mind to consider how different the real bond of 
to-day from the ideal bond of to-night. Now 
all generosity, all forbearance, all forgetfulness 
of little jealousies and unworthy divisions, all 
united action for the general good. Then all 
selfishness, all malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, 
and all evil ; now all good. Then a bond to be 
broken within the compass of a few — three or 
four — swiftly passing hours ; now a bond to be 
valid and of good effect generations hence." 

The committee's labors were successful, and 
an elegant building, in the Elizabethan style, at 
Maybury, was the result. On June 1st, 1860, 
the late prince consort, in laying the foundation- 
stone, spoke of the Dramatic College as confer- 
ring " a benefit upon the public as well as upon 
the stage, by aiding a profession from which the 
community at large derived national entertain- 
ment." Five years after, on 5th June, the 
Prince of Wales inaugurated the Central Hall 
of the College. The annual Fancy Fair at the 
Crystal Palace, and the junketings thereat, it is 
needless to say, are the means of adding a large 
accession to the funds. 

During the autumn months of this year, the 
readings were continued in London, and at va- 
rious large towns in England and Ireland, the 
novelist receiving both applause and money to 
a greater extent than ever. 

It was in November, 1858, that he allowed 
his name to be put in nomination for the high 
ofiice of Lord Rector of Glasgow University. 
His rivals were Lord Lytton (who was chosen 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



to the office) and Lord Shaftesbury. The re- 
sult of the poll was: Lord Lytton, 216; Lord 
Shaftesbury, 203 ; Dickens, 68. The cause of 
this large minority is now not remembered, but 
it is more than probable that Dickens took 
no special pains to secure votes in his own be- 
half. 

During the following month he wasentertained 
at a public dinner by the citizens of Coventry, 
and received from them a very handsome gold 
watch, as a testimony of their gratitude for his 
reading, in aid of the Coventry Institute, twelve 
months before. The day previously he had 
presided at Manchester, in aid of an Institute 
there. 

Early in 1859 a dispute arose between Mr. 
Dickens and his publishers, originating mainly 
in the unfortunate family disagreement to which 
we alluded on a former page ; and in conse- 
quence of this the conductor of "Household 
Words " resolved that the journal should cease, 
and he would close business relations with 
Messrs, Bradbury & Evans. Mr. Dickens ad- 
vertised that the discontinuance of " Household 
Words" would take place on March 28th. 
Messrs. Bradbury & Evans filed a Bill in Chan- 
cery, and the matter was heard by the Master 
of the Rolls. Both parties refusing to sell 
their interest, the winding up of the publication 
was directed. Dickens owned five-eighths, and 
had command over another eighth. At the sale, 
on 16th May, by Mr. Hodgson of Chancery Lane, 
the property, after a spirited contest, was knock- 
ed down to Dickens (represented by Mr. Arthur 
Smith) for £3550. In the last number of 
"Household Words," introducing the forth- 
coming periodical, he wrote : 

" He knew perfectly well, knowing his own 
rights, and his means of attaining them, that it 
could not be but that this work must stop, if he 
chose to stop it. He therefore announced, 
many weeks ago, that it would be discontinued 
on the day on which this final number bears 
date. The public have read a great deal to the 
contrary, and will observe that it has not in the 
least affected the result." 

Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, to justify their pro- 
ceedings, published a statement, afiirming — 

" That ' Household Words ' stopped against 
their will, and mentioned the appearance of 
' Once a Week ' — remarking, at the same time, 
that their business relations with Dickens had 
commenced in 1836 ; that in 1844 they acquired 
an interest in all works he might write, or in 
any periodical he might originate, during a 
term of seven years, and that under this agi-ee- 
ment they became possessed of a joint though 
unequal share of 'Household Words,' which 



started in 1850 ; that on the publication of his 
manifesto as to his conjugal differences, they un- 
derstood from a friend that he had resolved to 
break off his connections with them by reason 
of its non-insertion in ' Punch,' in which they 
had not thought fit to do so, * Punch ' being en- 
tirely a comic publication ; that in the November 
he summoned a meeting of the proprietors, and 
in consequence of the advertisement announcing 
the cessation of the work, they had no alterna- 
tive but to apply to the Master of the Rolls for 
protection." 

It was a most unfortunate affair, as Mr. 
Evans's son had married Miss Dickens, and 
thus a family, as well as a business, disagree- 
ment came about. Mr. Dickens's next step 
was to return to his original publishers, Messrs. 
Chajmian & Hall, who now issue all his works. 

" All the Year Round " was the title of Mr. 
Dickens's new venture, taking its motto, like 
"Household Words," from Shakspeare — i 

"The story of our lives from year to year." 

In its first number was contained the com-' 
mencement of "A Tale of Two Cities," subse-| 
quently published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, 
illustrated by Mr. Marcus Stone (a rising young 
artist), and dedicated to Earl Russell. 

In the preface the autlior mentions that he 
first thought of the story while acting with his 
children and friends in Mr. Wilkie Collins's 
drama of " The Frozen Deep." "As the idea 
became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself 
into its present form. Throughout its execu- 
tion, it has had complete possession of me; I 
have so far verified what is done and suffered in 
these pages, as that I have certainly done and 
suffered it all myself. * * * It has been one of 
my hopes to add something to the popular and 
picturesque means of understanding that terrible 
time, though no one can hope to add any thing 
to the philosophy of Mr. Carlyle's wonderful 
book." 

Dickens had the greatest respect for the works 
of that eminent writer, and it would be difficult 
to say which of the two distinguished authors, 
Tennyson or Carlyle, he was most fond of 
quoting. Only a few weeks before his death, 
Mr. Arthur Locker was discussing some literary 
topics with him : "On this occasion," that gen- 
tleman writes, " Mr. Dickens conversed with 
me chiefly about Mr. Carlyle's writings, for 
whose 'French Revolution' he expressed the 
strongest admiration, as he had practically 
shown in his ' Tale of Two Cities.' " 

The story holds the reader perfectly spell- 
bound. The power and awful gi'andeur ex- 
hibited in the descriptive scenes of bloodshed 



I 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



79 



and carnage enacted in tlie dreadful reign of 
Terror are almost beyond conception. It has, 
however, occasional passages of humor — as, for 
instance, where Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher deter- 
mines not to let his wife say her prayers, being 
of opinion that such a course of procedure, de- 
scribed by him as "flopping," is injurious to 
his business ! 

Tom Taylor dramatized the story for the 
Lyceum, where it was produced the January 
following, but it met with an indifferent recep- 
tion, although the principal character was un- 
dertaken by Madame Celeste. 

During October, Dickens gave readings at 
the Town Hall, Oxford, and attracted large 
audiences. On one occasion the Prince of 
Wales, then entering on his career as an Ox- 
onian, was present, and expressed considerable 
satisfaction at the pleasure he had experienced 
in hearing him read. 

The reader may remember that on an earlier 
page we gave an account of the handsome pres- 
ent which Mr. Dickens once received from his 
many Birmingham friends — more especially his 
artist friends there. On that occasion an ad- 
dress was presented to him expressing the great 
admiration all Birmingham people felt for his 
genius. Mr. W. P. Frith, in his portrait of 
Dickens, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 
1858, made the address form a portion of the 
picture ; but a Mr. Walker, an artist of Bir- 
mingham, could scarcely believe that the great 
novelist had troubled himself to remember the 
address, so he wrote to know the truth of the 
matter, when Mr. Dickens immediately replied ; 
" I have great pleasure in assuring you that the 
framed address in Mr. Frith's portrait is the ad- 
dress presented to me by my Birmingham friends, 
and to which you refer. It has stood at my el- 
bow, in that one place, ever since I received it, 
and, please God, it will remain at my side as 
long as I live and work."* 

It was the Christmas number for this year, 
"The Haunted House," which at the time pro- 
voked so much discussion on the subject of ghosts 
and supernatural visitors. The idea of the num- 
ber may have been suggested by the appearance 
of a work, published a few months previously, 
entitled "A Night in a Haunted House: a 
Tale of Facts. By the Author of ' Kazan,' and 
dedicated to Charles Dickens." Howitt took 
the matter up warmly, and Dickens, in a letter 
to Howitt, said that he had always taken great 
interest in these matters, but required evidence 
such as he had not yet met with ; and that wlien 
he thinks of the amount of misery and injustice 

* Tuesday, July 20th, 1859. 



that constantly obtains in this world, which a 
word from the departed dead person in question 
could set right,* he would not believe — could 
not believe — in the War Office ghost Avithout 
overwhelming evidence. 

Howitt sent a letter to one of the weekly 
papers, stating that " Mr. Dickens wrote me 
some time ago, to request that I would point out 
to him some house said to be haunted. I named 
to him two — that at Cheshunt, formerly inhab- 
ited by the Chapmans, and one at Wellington, 
near Newcastle. Never seen former, but had 
the latter." Dickens went to Cheshunt and 
visited the house, and communicated to Howitt 
that "the house in which the Chapmans lived 
has been greatly enlarged, and commands a 
high rent, and is no more disturbed than this 
house of mine." 

If any one of a nervous and superstitious tem- 
perament will read all the seven ghost stories 
contained in " The Haunted House " at a late 
hour, alone, and in a dull and gloomy room, a 
very quiet and comfortable night's rest may be 
safely calculated on ! 

About this time the Americans tried very 
hard to persuade Dickens to visit them and give 
his readings, and many of their newspapers were 
jubilant at the idea, and reported that his serv- 
ices had been secured. To dissipate all doubts, 
he wrote to Lieutenant-colonel Foster, of Bos- 
ton, U. S. A. : 

"I beg to assure you, in reply to your oblig- 
ing letter, that you are misinformed, and that I 
have no intention of visiting America in the en- 
suing autumn. "t 

In the numbers for the 4:th and 11th August. 
1860, of "All the Year Round," the two por- 
tions of " Hunted Down " appeared. It was 
supposed to be a reminiscence supplied by a Mr. 
Sampson, chief manager of a life assurance of- 
fice, relating the history of an assurance effect- 
ed on the life of Mr. Alfred Beckwith by Mr. 
Julius Slinkton, whom he (Slinkton) attempts 
to poison to get the money ; but, foiled in his 
object, destroys himself. The story was of a 
most melodramatic and sensational character. 
Before it appeared in this country, it had a six 
months' run in the "New York Ledger," apd 
the American publisher paid £1000 for the 
privilege. Dickens was loath to undertake its 
composition, but finally his objections were 
overcome. ' ' I thought," he wrote to the Ameri- 
can publisher, " that I could not be tempted at 

* "Oh that it were possible, for cue short hour, to 
see 
The souls we loved, that they might tell us 
What and where they be !" — Tenmyson. 

t Wednesday night, Tth September, 1859. 



80 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 




this time to engage in any undertaking, how- 
ever short, but the literary project which will 
come into active existence next month. But 
your proposal is so handsome that it changes my 
resolution, and I can not refuse it. * * * I will 
endea,vor to be at work upon the tale while this 
note is on its way to you across the water." 
The " project " referred to here as coming into 
active existence next month was " A Tale of 
Two Cities." 



CHAPTER XXV. 
"the uncommercial tkaveller." 

It was at the end of this year that a series of 
quaint and descriptive papers, which had ap- 
peared in " All the Year Round," was published 
by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, under the title of 
"The Uncommercial Traveller." They were 
originally seventeen in number, but in a subse- 
quent edition they were increased to twenty- 
eight papers, bearing such titles as "City 
Churches," " Sly Neighborhoods," " Night 
Walks," "Chambers," "Birthdays," "Funer- 
als," "Tramps." We need scarcely remark 
that they are all admirably written, and abound 
in delicate touches. In " Nurse's Stories," Mr. 
Dickens says, " Brobingnag (which has the cu- 
rious fate of being usually misspelt when writ- 
ten)." Here the illustrious author actually falls 
into the very error he is speaking of. The prop- 
er spelling of the word is Brohmngnag. 

It was in the autumn of this year that Mr. 
Dickens finally removed from Tavistock House 
to Gad's Hill, a place which he had purchased 
four years before. Some arrangement, we be- 
lieve, in connection with the lease of the London 
house prevented his removing earlier. Tavis- 
tock House thenceforward became the residence 
of Mr. Phineas Davis, a gentleman well known 
in aristocratic circles. The house next to Tav- 
istock House was occupied by the late Mr. Frank 
Stone, the eminent artist, and for a long time 
Mr. Dickens's neighbor. 

The Christmas number for 1860 was "A 
Message from the Sea." It was here that we 
be.came acquainted with Captain Jorgan, the 
American captain, and his faithful steward, Tom 
Pettifer. The Captain's task satisfactorily ter- 
minated, he shakes hands with the entire pop- 
ulation of the fishing village, inviting the whole, 
without exception, to come and stay with him 
for several months at Salem, United States. 

"The Sea-faring Man," narrating the ship- 
wreck, and the island on fire, in vividness of 
description are wonderful pieces of writing. 



The manager of the Britannia Theatre, Hox- 
ton, having announced for representation a 
dramatic adaptation of the tale, Dickens, in a 
letter to the "Times," gave his reasons for in- 
terfering with its production. Subsequently, 
Mr. Charles Reade tried the question in his 
action against Mr. Conquest for representing 
" Never too Late to Mend," and was unsuc- 
cessful. 

It was towards the close of this year that 
"Great Expectations," which had been pub- 
lished in "All the Year Round," came out in 
the (for Mr. Dickens) somewhat unusual form — 
the old lending-library form — of three volumes, 
and was published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, 
illustrated by Marcus Stone, and inscribed to 
Mr. C. II. Townshcnd. It is a novel of the 
most peculiar and fantastic construction, the 
plot of an extraordinary description, and the 
characters often grotesque, and sometimes im- 
possible. Here we meet with Abel Magwitch, 
the convict, a powerfully -drawn character; 
with Pip, a selfish, and oftentimes a pitiful fel- 
low, but good in the end, when his expectations 
have entirely faded ; with Joe Gargery, the 
blacksmith, the finest character of all — kind, 
patient, and true to Pip, from his infancy to 
manhood, shielding him in all his sliortcomings 
when a child, and liberally spooning gravy into 
his plate when he gets talked at by Pumble- 
chook at dinner ; with Miss Havisham, the 
broken-hearted woman, existing with the one 
idea of training her adopted child ; with Estella, 
a beautiful conception (Pip's love for her, and 
his grief when he finds her married to Bentley 
Drummle, the man without a heart to break, 
are masterpieces of description) ; with Pumble- 
chook, that frightful impostor. Perhaps the 
most entertaining portions are those connected 
with Wemmick, the lawyer's clerk, his "Cas- 
tle " at Walworth, and his peculiar ideas of 
portable property, his post-office mouth, and 
Mr. Jaggers, the criminal lawyer of Little Brit- 
ain, his employer. 

We may here mention that "Satis House," 
tHe residence of Miss Havisham, lies a little to 
the west of Boley Hill, near Rochester, and de- 
riA-^ed its peculiar name from the fact of Rich- 
ard Watts (founder of the Poor Travellers' 
House previously referred to) entertaining 
Queen Elizabeth in it — when on her journey 
round the coasts of Sussex and Kent — in 1573. 
Here she staid some days, and, on her leaving, 
Watts apologized for the smallness of the house 
for so great a Queen ; she merely replied 
"ySa^z's," signifying she was well content with 
her accommodation. 



I 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



81 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

MK. DICKERS AND THE ELECTORS OE FINSBU- 

RT. " TOM tiddler's GROUND." " SOME. 

body's LUGGAGE." — " MRS. LIRRIPER'S 
LODGES'GS." 

In November of this year, Kome admirers in 
Finsbnry formed the idea that Mr. Dickens 
would have no objections to represent that bor- 
ough in Parliament, and his name was brought 
prominently forward as a candidate. He was 
then at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and on the 21st 
of November he wrote to the "Daily News:" 
"Being here for a day or two, I have observed, 
in your paper of yesterday, an account of a 
meeting of Finsbury electors, in which it was 
discussed whether I should be invited to be- 
come a candidate for the borough.* It may 
save some trouble if you will kindly confirm a 
sensible gentleman, who doubted at that meet- 
ing whether I was quite the sort of man for 
Finsburv. I am not at all the sort of man, for 
I believe nothing wonld induce me to offer my- 
self as a parliamentary representative of that 
place, or any other under the sun." 

In the early part of this winter he resumed his 
readings in the provinces, and met with consid- 
erable success, especially in Lancashire, where 
there was great enthusiasm shown to see and 
hear the author of " Pickwick," and latterly of 
"Hard Times," which had found thousands of 
readers in the cotton districts. 

The Christmas number for this year, " Tom 
Tiddler's Ground," excited considerable curios- 
ity, and one of the stories became a subject of 
general discussion — that of "Mr. Mopes," the 
hermit. "Picking up Soot and Cinders" 
gives the history and description of the hermit 
— a dirty, lazy, slothful fellow, dressed up in a 
blanket fastened by a skewer, and revelling in 
soot and grease. There is one story in the 
number, called "Picking up Terrible Com- 
pany," of the most intense sensational charac- 
ter. It is told by Francois Thierry, a French 
convict, iinder the head of "Picking up a 
Pocket-bdok." 

The "hermit" was a living reality — a person 
of property and education, who, to mortify his 
friends, we believe, withdrew from the world, 
and lived in rags and filth. Soon after a let- 
ter, signed "A County Down Lady," was in- 
serted in the "Downpatrick Recorder," in which 
the writer related the particulars of a visit she 
had paid to " IMr. Mopes," the hermit, and 
concluded by saying: "Charles Dickens of- 

* Consequent on the death of Mr. Thomas S. Dun- 
combe— the "Tom Duncombe " of Finsbury— the late 
representative. 

6 



fended him terribly. He pretended he was a 
Highlander, and Mr. Lucas at once began to 
question him about the country, and then spoke 
to him in Gaelic, which he couldn't reply to. 
Mr. Lucas said to him, ' Sir, you are an impos- 
tor ; you are no gentleman.' " 

A copy of the newspaper was at once forward- 
ed to Mr. Dickens by a friend, who asked if 
there was any truth in the statement. The re- 
ply was : "As you sent me the paper with that 
very cool account of myself in it, perhaps you 
want to know whether or not it is true. There 
is not a syllable of truth in it. I have never 
seen the person in question but once in my life, 
and then I was accompanied by Lord Orford, 
Mr. Arthur Helps, the clerk of the privy coun- 
cil, my eldest daughter, and my sister-in-law, 
all of whom know perfectly well that nothing 
of the sort passed. It is a sheer invention of 
the wildaet kind."* Lucas, the papers report- 
ed, was terribly cut up by the inclement win- 
ter of 1866-'7, and was hardly expected to get 
over it. 

In March, 1862, Dickens commenced a new 
series of readings at St. James's Hall, which 
proved a very advantageous speculation. He 
officiated as Chairman at the Annual Festival 
of the Dramatic Equestrian and Musical Asso- 
ciation, on the 5th of the same month, at Wil- 
lis's Rooms, and delivered an eloquent address; 
he fulfilled the same duty at the annual dinner 
of the Artists' General Benevolent Fund, at 
the Freemasons' Tavern, on the 29th of this 
month, and the result was a large accession to 
its treasury. Acting in the same capacity at 
the Annual Festival of the News-venders' and 
Provident Institution, at the last-named tavern, 
on the 20th May following, in proposing the 
toast of the evening, "Prosperity to the News- 
venders' Benevolent Institution,"! he delivered 
a very amusing speech on "The Newsman's 
Calling." In the course of his remarks he 
"started off with the newsman on a fine May 
morning, to take a view of the wondeiful 
broad-sheets which every day he scatters broad- 
cast over the country. Well, the first thing 
that occurs to me, following the newsman, is, 
that every day we are born, that every day we 
are married — some of us — and that every day 
we are dead ; consequently, the first thing the 
news-vender's column informs me is, that At- 
kins has been born, that Catkins has been mar- 
ried, and that Datkins is dead. But the most 
remarkable thing I immediately discover in the 
next column is, that Atkins has grown to be 

* London, 2Tth March, 1S62. 

t He was elected President of the Institution in 
May, 1S54. 



82 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



z' 



seventeen years old, and that he has run away, 
for at last my eye lights on the fact that Wil- 
liam A., who is seventeen years old, is adjured 
immediately to return to his disconsolate pa- 
rents, and every thing will be arranged to the 
satisfaction of every one. I am afraid he will 
never return, simply because, if he had meant 
to come back, he would never have gone away. 
Immediately below, I find a mysterious charac- 
ter in such a mysterious difficulty, that it is 
only to be expressed by several disjointed let- 
tefs, by several figures, and several stars ; and 
then I find the explanation in the intimation 
that the writer has given his property over to 
his uncle, and that the elepliant is on the wing. 
* * * I learn, to my intense gratification, that 
I need never grow old, that 1 may always pre- 
serve the juvenile bloom of my complexion ; 
that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own 
fault ; that if I have any complaint,<ind want 
brown cod-liver oil or Turkish baths, I am told 
where to get them ; and that if I want an in- 
come of £7 a week, I may have it by sending 
half a crown in postage-stamps. Then I look 
to the police intelligence, and I can discover 
that I may bite off a human living nose cheap- 
ly ; but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a 
calf from a shop-window, it will cost me ex- 
ceedingly dear. I also find that if I allow my- 
self to be betrayed into the folly of killing an 
inoffensive tradesman on his own door-step, 
that little incident will not affect the testi- 
monials to my character, but that I shall be 
described as a most amiable young man, and, 
as above all things, remarkable for the singular 
inoffensiveness of my character and disposi- 
tion." 

But the entire speech is much too long for 
our space. 

"We have now reached another winter — that 
of 1862 — and this time our novelist devoted his 
Christmas number, " Somebody's Luggage," to 
that peculiar class of individuals known as 
" Waiters." Mr. Arthur Locker truly says of 
it : " We rise from the little story with kindli- 
er feelings towards the whole race of waiters ; 
we know more of their struggles and trials, and 
so we sympathize with them more." Most of 
our readers will remember the description of 
Christopher, the head-waiter, with his amusing 
revelations of his profession — the mysterious 
luggage left in Room 24 B, with a lien on it for 
£2 12s. 6d., his purchasing the whole of it, and 
finding all the articles crammed full of MSS. — 
his subsequently selling them, and, on the ar- 
rival of the proofs^ his horror at the appearance 
of the owner — his placing them before him, and 
the joy of the unknown at finding. his stories in 



print, and sitting down, with several new pens 
and all the inkstands well filled, to correct, in a 
high state of excitement, and being discovered 
in the morning, himself and the proofs, so smear- 
ed with ink, that it would have been difficult to 
have said which was him, and which was them, 
and which was blots — is sufficient to keep the 
reader in one continual roar of laughter. 

In the preceding year several imitation Christ- 
mas numbers had appeared, but this season they 
swarmed. The newspapers and the boardings 
were filled with advertisements of them, and Mr. 
Dickens expressed great annoyance at the man- 
ner in which he was being copied. 

In the March following (18G3) he presided 
at the eighteenth anniversary of the Royal Gen- 
eral Theatrical Fund, and made a most excel- 
lent speech. 

About this time Mr. Charles Reade's "Very 
Hard Cash " was appearing in the pages of "All 
the Year Round," and that gentleman having 
attacked with virulence the Commissioners in 
Lunacy, Dickens, in a foot-note to Chapter 
XLVL, wrote : 

" The conductor of this journal desires to take 
this opportunity of expressing his personal be- 
lief that no public servants do their duty with 
greater ability, humanity, and independence 
than the Commissioners in Lunacy." 

When the story was concluded, to further 
show that the sentiments expressed in it were 
not those of Mr, Dickens — or that at least he 
had not controlled them — he wrote : 

"The statements and opinions of this jour- 
nal generally are, of course, to be received as the 
statements and opinions of its conductor. But 
this is not so in the case of a work of fiction first 
published in these pages as a serial story, with 
the name of an eminent writer attached to it. 
When one of my literary brothers does me the 
honor to undertake such a task, I hold that he 
executes it on his own personal responsibility, 
and for the sustainment of his own reputation ; 
and I do not consider myself at liberty to exer- 
cise that control over his text which i claim as 
to other contributions. 

"Chaeles Dickens." 

He was justified in making this statement, as 
Mr. Forster, an old and true friend — and who 
has since been appointed by Mr. Dickens his 
principal executor — is one of the commissioners. 

Another Christmas has come round — the 
Christmas of 1863. "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodg- 
ings " was the title of the number for this sea- 
son, and it created an immense furore. The 
quaint manners and ideas of Mrs. Lirriper, lodg- 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



ing-house keeper, of 81 Norfolk Street, Strand I 
— her troubles with the domestics, willing So- ' 
phy, Mary Anne — the fiery Carolina fighting 
with the lodgers, and being sent off to prison — 
the odious Miss Wozenham, an opposition lodg- 
ing-house keeper — the adoption of poor little 
Jemmy, under the joint guardianship of her ec- 
centric but good-hearted lodger, Major Jackman, 
his education at home, and then his being sent 
off to a boarding-school, are inimitably sketched. 

Thackeray died on Christmas-eve, 1863. In 
the February number of the " Cornhill Maga- 
zine," for the ensuing year, Dickens wrote a 
most beautiful and touching "In Memoriam;" 
which shows in what estimation he was held by 
his surviving friend : 

"We had our differences of opinion. I 
thought that he too much feigned a want of ear- 
nestness, and that he made a pretense of under- 
valuing his art, which was not good for the art 
that he held in trust. But when we fell upon 
these topics, it was never very gravely, and I 
have a lively image of him in my mind, twisting 
both his hands in his hair, and stamping about, 
laughing, to make an end of the discussion. 
When we were associated in remembrance of 
the late Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he delivered a 
public lecture in London, in the course of which 
he read his very best contribution to ' Punch,' 
describing the grown-up cares of a poor fam- 
ily of young children. No one hearing him 
could have doubted his natural gentleness, or 
his thoroughly unaffected manly sympathy with 
the weak and lowly. He read the paper most 
pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness 
that certainly moved one of his audience to 
tears. This was presently after his standing 
for Oxford, from which place he had dispatched 
his agent to me, with a droll note (to which he 
afterwards added a verbal postcript), urging me 
to ' come down and make a speech, and tell 
them who he was, for he doubted whether more 
than two of the electors had ever heard of him, * 
and he thought there might be as many as six 
or eight who had heard of me.' He introduced 



* This anecdote from "Thackeray ; the Humorist and 
the Man of Letters," by Theodore Taylor, may be fit- 
tingly appended : 

"Pray, what can I do to serve you, sir?" inquired 
the vice-chancellor.— " My name is Thackeray."— " So 
I see by this card."—"" I seek permission to lecture 
within the precincts."—" Ah! you are a lecturer ; what 
subjects do you undertake, religious or political ?"— 
"Neither ; I am a literary man."— " Have you written 
any thing ?"— " Yes ; I am the author of ' Vanity Fair.' " 
—"I presume a Dissenter ; has that any thing to do 
with John Bunyan's book?"— "Not exactly; I have 
also written 'Peudennis.'"— "Never heard of these 
works; but no doubt they are proper books."— "I 
have also contributed to 'Punch.'"— " 'Punch !' I 
have heard of that ; is it not a ribald publication ?" 



the lecture just mentioned with a reference to 
his late electioneering failure, which was full of 
good sense, good spirits, and good humor. He 
had a particular delight in boys, and an excel- 
lent way with them. I remember his once ask- 
ing me, with a fantastic gravity, when he had 
been to Eton, where my eldest son then was, 
whether I felt as he did in regard of never see- 
ing a boy without wanting instantly to give him 
a sovereign ? I thought of this when I looked 
down into his grave, after he was laid there, for 
I looked down into it over the shoulder of a bov 
to whom he had been kind." 

Frequently, in the numbers of " Household 
Words," and in "All the Year Round," has 
Mr. Dickens given us an anecdote, a biograph- 
ical scmp concerning himself, or an article which 
could only be considered as " personal ;" and no 
future biographer of the great man can tell the 
complete story of his life without having re- 
course to the pages of these magazines. 

The anecdotes we have already given of 
Dickens's ravens show his fondness for animals. 
Mr. Collam, Secretary of the Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, now kindly 
directs our attention to the great novelist's ad- 
mirable paper in "All the Year Round,"* enti- 
tled " Pincher Astray : an account of the Home 
for Lost and Starving Dogs," at Holloway. 
The paper records the adventures of a favorite 
dog, Pincher : 

" He was not handsome — at least, in the com- 
mon acceptation of the term. * * * He was a 
morose beast, and of most uncertain temper. 
* * * He was the terror of the trades-people : 
he loathed the butcher ; he had a deadly hatred 
for the fishmonger's boy; and when I com- 
plained to the post-office of the non-receipt in 
due course of a letter from my aunt's legal ad- 
viser, advising me to repair at once to the old 
lady's death-bed (owing to which non-receipt I 
was cut out of my aunt's will), I was answered 
that ' the savage character of my dog — a circum- 
stance with which the department could not in- 
terfere — prevented the letter-carrier from the 
due performance of his functions after nightfall.' 
Still I love him ! What though my trowser- 
ends were frayed into hanging strips by his 
teeth; what though my slippers are a mass of 
chewed pulp ; what though he has towzled all the 
corners of the manuscript of my work on Loga- 
rithms — shall I reproach him now that he is 
lost to me? Never!" 

Pincher strayed away — was lost. Applica- 
tion was made at the "Home," which afforded 
Mr. Dickens an opportunity to describe that in- 

* January 30, 1S64 



84 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



stitution, but he was not there. After some 
days he returned "with a ruffled coat, a torn 
ear, a fierceness of eye which bespoke recent 
trouble. I afterwards learned that he had been 
a principal in a combat held in the adjoining 
parish, where he acquitted himself with a cer- 
tain amount of honor, and was pinning his ad- 
versary, when a rustic person from a farm broke 
in upon the ring, and kicked both the combat- 
ants out of it. This ignominy was more than 
Pincher could bear ; he flung himself upon the 
rustic's leg, and brought him to the ground ; 
then fled, and remained hidden in a wood until 
hunger compelled him to come home. We 
have interchanged no communication since, but 
regard each other with sulky dignity. I per- 
ceive that he intends to remain obdurate until 
I make the first advances." 

Early in the new year Mr. Dickens received 
intelligence of the death of his son, Walter Lan- 
dor Dickens, in the Officers' Hospital at Cal- 
cutta. He was a lieutenant of the 26th Native 
Infantry Regiment, and had been doing duty 
with the 42d Highlanders. His decease oc- 
curred on the last day of the old year. 

During this spring* he was requested by the 
Working-men's Shakspeare Memorial Com- 
mittee to take the chief direction in planting 
the " Shakspe'are Oak'" on Primrose Hill. Mr. 
F. G. Tomlins, a well-known litterateur, and 
at one time editor of the "Leader'' newspa- 
per, wrote to him, stating the working-men's 
wishes, and Mr. Dickens at once replied: "I 
am truly honored by the feeling of the working- 
men towards me, as expressed in your note, and 
would far rather take part in their interesting 
proceedings than in any other ceremonial held 
on that day. 

*' But I am not free. The request, unfortu- 
nately, comes too late. I have declined several 
public invitations on the ground that I had re- 
solved to take part in none, and had bound my- 
self to a few personal friends for a quiet, pri- 
vate remembrance of the occasion. From this 
conclusion I can not now depart. Do me the 
kindness to assure the delegates, with whom 
you are in communication, of my cordial sym- 
pathy and respect," 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

" OUR MUTUAL FEIEND." " DOCTOR MARI- 

GOLD's prescriptions." — "aiUGBY JUNC- 
TION." 

Dickens was a guest at the Anniversary 
Banquet at the Royal Academy, on 1st May, 

* Wednesday, 12th April, 1S64. 



1864 ; and Mr. John Forster, responding to the 
toast, " The Interests of Literature," gracefully 
remarked : "In fiction, I see not only the great 
master of character and humor (Mr. Dickens) 
who has held sway over both now for more than 
a quarter of a century, and this very day starts 
after new laurels with as much vigor and fresh- 
ness as when he first began the race." 

" Our Mutual Friend " was the work alluded 
to by Mr. Forster, and Number I. Avas published 
on the 1st of May, by Messrs. Chapman & 
Hall, with illustrations by Mr. Marcus Stone. 

The plot is most ingeniously constructed, and 
each character an elaborate and highly executed 
portrait, although, perhaps, occasionally verging 
on caricature. 

Miss Jenny Wren, the entertaining Doll's 
dressmaker ; her drunken father, '.' Fascina- 
tion " Flcdgeby ; Riah, the patient and kind- 
hearted Jew; Silas Wegg, the wooden-legged 
individual, a parasite and selfish impostor, " lit- 
erary man " to Boffin, employed at the rate of 
twopence-half]ienny an hour to read and ex- 
pound the " Decline and Fall of the Rooshian 
Empire," otherwise "Roman Empire ;" John 
Harman ; Lizzie Hexam ; Venus, the anatom- 
ical artist ; Bradley Headstone ; Mr. and Mrs. 
Boffin ; and Bella Wilfer, daughter of the 
Cherub ; are the best-remembered characters 
in the book. The story is somewhat improba- 
ble, and contains many scenes of horror and 
crime. Taken as a specimen of literary work- 
manship, it is his best production since " David 
Copperfield," but it is not popular with readers. 

Mr. Crabb Robinson has preserved in his Di- 
ary some playful lines by Southey ; but his ed- 
itor has omitted to add a circumstance which 
would have increased their interest. They 
were written in the album of Mrs. S. C. Hall, 
and the opposite page contained the autographs 
of Joseph Bonaparte and Daniel O'Connell, a 
circumstance which suggested what the Lau- 
reate wrote : 

"Birds of a feather flock together, 
But vide the opposite page ; 
And thence you may gather I'm not of a feather 
With some of the birds in this cage." 

Robert Southey, 22(1 October, 1836. 

Some years afterwards, Charles Dickens, good- 
humoredly referring to Southey's change of 
opinion, wrote in the album, immediately un- 
der Southey's lines, the following : 

"Now, if I don't make 

The completest mistake 
That ever put man in a rage, 

This bird of two weathers 

Has moulted his feathers, 
And left them in some other cage."— Boz, 

When these last lines fii-Jt appeared in the 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



85 



ing Boz's remark, retaliated by "good-humor- 
edly referring " to the change of style between 
" Pickwick" and " Our Mutual Friend," and 
wrote in the margin of the periodical : 

" Put his first work and last work together, 
And learn from the groans of all men, 
That if he's not alier'd his feather, 
He's certainly alter'd his pen," 



"Our Mutual Friend" 
"The Golden Dustman," 



was dramatized as 
and was acted on 
June 16th, 1866, with great ability, at the Sad- 
ler's Wells, and afterwards at Astley's and the 
Britannia Theatres. 

Dickens, on the 11th of May, 1864, presided 
at the Adelphi Theatre, at a public meeting for 
the purpose of founding the Shakspeare Foun- 
dation Schools, in connection with the Royal 
Dramatic College. On this occasion he made, 
as usual, an admirable speech, and a large sum 
of money was collected. 

During the summer of this year, and while 
on a trip to Paris, Mr. Dickens met with a sun- 
stroke, which greatly alarmed his friends. For 
many hours he was in a state of complete in- 
sensibility, but at length recovered, and in due 
course returned home. 

The interest taken in "Mrs. Lirriper and 
her Lodgings," the preceding Christmas, in- 
duced Dickens to give a sequel to the old lady's 
experiences. Accordingly, in the Christmas of 
1864, we had " Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy." This 
narrated the death, in France, of Mr. Edson, 
the father of Jemmy ; the journey of Mrs. Lir- 
riper, the Major, and Master Jem, to the death- 
bed of the repentant man ; their adventures go- 
ing and returning ; the revelations of the ex- 
traordinary conduct of her brother-in-law. Doc- 
tor Joshua Lirriper ; the vagaries of Mr. Buf- 
fle, the collector of the assessed taxes ; her 
meritorious conduct towards him and his fami- 
ly on the night of the fire, and also, when Miss 
Wozenham was in danger of being sold up, 
lending her money to pay the execution out, 
and becoming intimate friends — are all very 
charmingly and amusingly described. 

A little matter occurred in the following 
March, to which we may just allude in passing. 
Mr. Dickens had nominated, and Mr. Wilkie 
Collins seconded, a very intimate friend as a 
member of the Garrick Club, to which they 
both belonged. The committee, for some un- 
accountable reason, blackballed the gentleman; 
Dickens and Collins, disgusted at this treat- 
ment, resigned their membership, and the af- 
fair for the moment created some considerable 
stir in the literary world. 

On the 9th May he presided at the annual 



"Art Journal," a friend of Southey's, resent- festival of the News-venders' Benevolent and 

Provident Association, and delivered another 
admirable speech. 

Ten days afterwards, on the 20th of the 
same month, he fulfilled a similar post at the 
second anniversary of the Newspaper Press 
Fund (being a vice-president of that useful as- 
sociation). His speech was that well-known 
one in which he gave us his early reporting ex- 
periences. In defending the profession he said : 
" I would venture to remind you, if I delicate- 
ly may, in the august presence of members of 
Parliament, how much we, the public, owe to 
the reporters, if it were only fcr their skill in 
the two great sciences of condensation and re- 
jection. Conceive what our sufferings under 
an Imperial Parliament, however popularly con- 
stituted, under however glorious a constitution, 
would be, if the reporters could not skip !" And 
it was on this occasion that he exclaimed, in the 
midst of the warmest applause, "I am not here 
advocating the case of a mere ordinary client 
of whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold 
a brief to-night for my brothers ! " Since his 
death this passage has been often quoted in 
proof of the love he bore to the literary profes- 
sion and all connected with it. 

We come now to a very sad occurrence, from 
the effects of which Mr. Dickens never entirely 
recovered. On the 9th of June he was unfor- 
tunate enough to be a passenger in the train 
that met with the lamentable accident at Sta- 
plehurst, in consequence of the plate-layer's 
negligence. The carriage in which he was sit- 
ting toppled over the edge of the precipice, and 
hung suspended sufficiently long to allow him to 
escape by scrambling out of the window, unin- 
jured in body, and without even a bruise, but 
his nerves receiving a shock from which he oft- 
en afterwards complained. The News-venders' 
Benevolent and Provident Institution, at a spe- 
cial meeting, a few days after, passed a resolu- 
tion congratulating him on his miraculous and 
providential escape, and concluded by express- 
ing ' ' their sincere hope that a life so publicly 
and privately valuable may be spared for many, 
many years, further to adorn English litera- 
ture with imperishable works, and to grace 
with apt eloquence, and promote by strenuous 
practical example and advocacy efforts made 
to ameliorate distress and provide for the sad 
contingencies of sickness and old age." 

Dickens always considered the regular con- 
tributors to "Household Words " and to " All 
the Year Round " as connected with him in a 
manner much more closely than as ordinary 
professional or purely business connections. 
"JNIy brothers" was his favorite phrase; and 



86 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



when Miss Adelaide Anne Proctei- died he 
wrote for the beautiful "Legends and Lyr- 
ics,"* which her family published as an " In 
Memoriam " volume, a most touching; preface. 
This passage explains how he came to know the 
daughter of "Barry Cornwall :" 

" In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, 
as conductor of the weekly journal, 'Household 
Words,' a short poem among the proffered con- 
tributions, very different, as I thought, from the 
shoal of verses perpetually passing through the 
office of such a periodical, and possessing much 
more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown 
to me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom 
I had never heard of; and she was to be ad- 
dressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a circu- 
lating library in the western district of London. 
Through this channel Miss Berwick was in- 
formed that her poem was accepted, and was in- 
vited to send another. She complied, and be- 
came a regular and frequent contributor. Many 
letters passed between the journal and Miss 
Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never 
seen. How we came gradually to establish, at 
the office of ' Household Words,' that we knew 
all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. 
But we settled somehow, to our complete satis- 
faction, that she was governess in a family; that 
she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned ; 
and that she had long been in the same family. 
We really knew nothing whatever of her, ex- 
cept that she was remarkably business-like, 
punctual, self-reliant, and reliable : so I suppose 
we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, 
my mother was not a more real personage to 
me than Miss Berwick the governess became. 
This went on until December, 1854, when the 
Christmas number, entitled ' The Seven Poor 
Travellers,' was sent to press. Happening to 
be going to dine that day with an old and dear 
friend, distinguished in literature as Barry 
Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of that 
number, and remai'ked, as I laid it jan the draw- 
ing-room table, that it contained a vei-y pretty 
poem, written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next 
day brought me the disclosure that I had so 
spoken of the poem to the mother of its writer, 
in its writer's presence ; that I had no such cor- 
respondent in existence as Miss Berwick ; that 
the name had been assumed by Bai'ry Cornwall's 
eldest daughter. Miss Adelaide Anne Procter." 

And, after describing her cheerfulness, her 
modesty, her conviction that life "must not be 
dreamed away, ''her unceasing effbrts to do good, 
he thus describes the final ending. She had 
then lain an invalid upon her bed through fifteen 

* It was published by Messrs. Bell & Dalcly as a 
Christmas gift-book. 



months : "In all that time her old cheerfulness 
never quitted her. In all that time not an im- 
patient or querulous minute can be remember- 
ed. At length, at midnight on the 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1864, she turned down a leaf of a little 
book she was reading, and shut it up. The 
ministering hand that had copied the verses into 
the tiny album was soon round her neck, and 
she quietly asked, as the clock was on the stroke 
of one: ' Do you think I am dying, mamma?' 
— 'I think you are very, very ill to-night, my 
dear.' — ' Send for my sister. My feet are so 
cold. Lift me up !' Her sister entering as they 
raised her, she said: *It has come at last!' 
And with a bright and happy smile, looked up- 
ward, and departed." 

We are now approaching the last of those 
Christmas numbers which for so many years 
have formed a friendly tie between author and 
reader at the festive season. "Doctor Mari- 
gold's Prescriptions " was the number for Christ- 
mas, 1865. It gave the history of an itinerant 
"Cheap Jack," named "Doctor," in remem- 
brance of a kind-hearted medical man who offi- 
ciated at his birth, and who would only accept a 
tea-tray in payment for his services. The ' ' Doc- 
tor's ' peculiar talents in his line of business, 
and the happy contrast to the political Cheap 
Jack, making rash promises never intended to 
be kept ; the giant Pickleson, otherwise Rinaldo 
di Velasco, with his small head, weak eyes, and 
weak knees ; his master, Mr. Mim, the proprietor 
of the caravan ; the death of little Sophy in her 
father's arms, while he convulses his rustic au- 
dience with his witticisms and funny speeches ; 
the suicide of his wife ; the peculiarities of his 
old horse ; and the intelligent dog, who " taught 
himself out of his own head to growl at any 
person in the crowd that bid as low as six- 
pence ;" the purchase of the poor little deaf and 
dumb girl for a pair of braces ; his kindness to 
her, then sending her to an institution to be ed- 
ucated , her subsequent marriage with one simi- 
larly afflicted as herself; their coming home, 
after a long absence, with tlieir little girl ; and 
Marigold's intense excitement in finding the 
child can speak, is all a delightful reality, and 
thoroughly true to nature. 

Dickens was a guest at the Mansion House, 
on January 16th following, on the occasion of a 
magnificent banquet. He proposed the "Health 
of the Lady Mayoress."' The next month we 
find him taking the chair (for the second time) 
at the annual dinner of the Dramatic, Equestri- 
an, and Musical Fund at Willis's rooms.* 

The following month Dickens took a promi- 

* February 14, :j|6G. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



87 



nent part in another public meeting — the annual 
festival of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. 
It came off on March 28th, and Sir Benjamin 
Phillips, the Lord Mayor, in replying to his 
" health " — which our author had proposed — 
told this interesting anecdote : " My acquaint- 
ance with Mr, Dickens dates from my boyhood. 
I recollect being in Hamburg, some thirty years 
ago, upon a commercial errand, when my mind 
and time were engaged in those pursuits, and, 
meeting with a gentleman with whom I had 
some very large transactions, he invited me to 
breakfast with hihi the following morning. I 
went to him, we passed a pleasant hour, and 
after he rose from his table he looked at his 
watch and said, 'Let us take a walk.' ' Well,' 
I said, ' I have no objection to that,' and we 
walked together. He seemed very restless. 
We went to a cafe and read a newspaper, and I 
could get him to do any thing but attend to busi- 
ness. At last out he took his watch and said : 

*' ' My dear friend, you must excuse me, this 
is the day on which the fifth number of a work 
written by one of your countrymen, and called 
"Boz," comes to Hamburg, and until I get that 
number and read it I can neither talk of busi- 
ness nor any thing else.' 

" I take shame to myself," continued the 
Lord Mayor on this occasion, "that I at that 
moment should have been in utter ignorance of 
the brilliant talent of my illustrious friend, of 
whom I can say, as was said by another distin- 
guished poet, that the price of his literary labors 
is immortality, and that posterity will generous- 
ly and proudly pay it. * * * I never contem- 
plated in my philosophy that I should have the 
honor of what Mr. Dickens has been pleased to 
call a personal friendship with the man whom, I 
do not hesitate to say, any crowned head in 
Europe would be proud to shake by the hand 
and call by the name — the man who has added, 
in this generation, honor and dignity to his pro- 
fession — who has penetrated and dug from the 
hearts of men their virtues and their qualities, 
and to whom the whole world owes a deep and 
a lasting debt of gratitude ; and I unhesitating- 
ly say, and say most proudly, that it is to me, 
representing, as I do, the largest commercial city 
in the world — that I consider it to be a great 
honor to be permitted, in the name of humanity, 
to offer my grateful and graceful tribute to Mr. 
Charles Dickens." 

The members of the Metropolitan Rowing- 
clubs, dining together at the London Tavern, on 
the 7th May following, Dickens, as President 
of the Nautilus Rowing-club ("of which his eld- 
est son was captain), occupied the chair : his 
speech on this occasion was full of humor. 



The last number but one of the old familiar 
Christmas Numbers was now at hand. " Mug- 
by Junction " was the title of that issued in De- 
cember, 1866, and it contained a larger amount 
of writing by Dickens than usual. " Barbox 
Brothers and Co.," "The Boy at Mugby," 
and "The Signalman," were his contributions. 

The description of the Mugby Junction Sta- 
tion at three in the morning, in tempestuous 
weather; the arrival of the express train, the 
guard " glistening with drops of wet, and look- 
ing at the tearful face of his watch by the light 
of his lantern ;" the alighting of Barbox 
Brothers ; the appearance of '' Lamps," the vel- 
veteen individual; his daughter Phoebe, who 
kept a school ; the episode of Polly going a 
astray, and being found by Barbox Brothers; and 
the relating of Barbox Brothers' past life and 
adventures, are told in a manner the reader will 
•not easily forget. 

*' The Boy at Mugby" was intended to show 
the abominable system of our railway refresh- 
ment rooms, with their stale pastry, saw-dust 
sandwiches, scalding tea and coffee, and unpal- 
atable butter-scotch, in comparison with the ex- 
cellent arrangements for the comfort and accom- 
modation of railway travellers in France. 

As some indication of the sale of these 
"Christmas Numbers," we may state that the 
sale of " Mugby Junction" exceeded a quarter 
of a million copies. 

During the first three months of the year 1 867 
he gave readings at St. James's Hall to crowded 
audiences, having in the previous April, May, 
and June (1866) appeared at Manchester, 
Greenwich, the Crystal Palace, St. James's Hall, 
and other places, delighting and amusing many 
thousands of people. 

On the 5th of June we find him presiding at 
the ninth anniversary festival of the Railway 
Benevolent Society, at Willis's Rooms ; and it 
was in his speech on this occasion that he gave 
the amusing story of "The Ten Suitors." 

In May his old and dear friend, Clarkson 
Stanfield, the Royal Academician, died, and the 
reader may remember the beautiful and touch- 
ing obituary notice which Dickens penned on 
the occasion — the affectionate appreciation of 
the delicate shades of the great maritime artist's 
character "which that notice evinced, and the 
noble peroration with which it closed. A friend 
of the late illustrious author, to whom we are 
already indebted for some interesting facts, re- 
marks : "The recent earnest wish displayed by 
the Queen to confer upon Dickens some title of 
honor, and the womanly refinement shown by 
Her Majesty in seeking to make that honor one 
which he could accept without derogating from 



88 



LITE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



his social principles, gives his parting words on 
Stanfield a not unkindly significance. It was 
after enumerating the artist's many claims to 
public distinction, after specifying several of his 
works by name, and after pointing to the recog- 
nition he would have received had he belonged 
to a foreign state, that Dickens said : ' It is 
superfluous to add that he died Mi\ Stanfield — 
he was an Englishman.' " 

On the 17th September following, he took the 
chair at a public meeting of the Printers' Head- 
ers. A corrector of the press, and at that time 
a member of the " Association," who was pres- 
ent with the other working-men, has forwarded 
to us this account of the meeting. Coming from 
one of the men themselves, it is of interest, as 
showing their appreciation of that respect and 
sympathy which Charles Dickens ever expressed 
for honest and intelligent working-men : 

"I well remember, on the evening when 
Dickens so readily consented to preside at a 
meeting of the London Association of Correctors 
of the Press, following the immortal novelist up 
the steps of the Salisbury Hotel, Fleet Street, 
where the meeting was to be held. The great 
master, on that occasion, met the assemblage of 
literary drudges with the open-hearted frankness 
of a brother. As he throw aside his large light 
cloak, he shook hands with all who sought that 
honor with the utmost warmth. Even now I 
fancy I can feel the firm grip, and see his cheery 
smile. He was dressed with the greatest care 
and elegance, as if for an evening party or state 
ball. His florid complexion, dark glittering 
eye, and grizzled beard, were very striking ; but 
above all, the loftiness of his massive brow — de- 
noting ' the mighty brain within' — inspired the 
beholder with reverence. In his speech he ex- 
pressed the warmest friendship for the intelligent 
body of men before him, to whom, he said, * he 
was indebted for many kindly hints, and judi- 
cious corrections and queries in his proofs, which 
in the hurry of business had escaped his notice 
while preparing '" copy," or revising sheets for 
press.' He said that he had other engagements 
for that evening, but had at once put them aside 
when he had been invited to spend an hour with 
the practical correctors of the Press, for the ad- 
vancement of their interests." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. PEDESTRIAN 

TASTES. 

Pressing invitations from American friends, 
and the desire to carry out a long-nursed proj- 
ect, induced Mr. Dickens earlv in the year to 



make preparations for a visit to the United 
States in the autumn. The fact soon became 
known to the American journalists, and from 
that time until he landed, paragraphs, poems 
of welcome, and scraps of so-called intelligence 
— scraps which surprised even Mr. Dickens 
himself — were continually appearing in the 
papers there. The " New York Tribune " said : 
" Charles Dickens is coming to the United 
States to give a series of readings in the prin- 
cipal cities of the republic. The announce- 
ment will be received with pleasure throughout 
the country. Our people do, indeed, remem- 
ber the 'American Notes,' and the satirical 
chapters in ' Martin Chuzzlewit,' and are no 
doubt of opinion that, as a matter of taste, Mr. 
Dickens might well have been more gracious. 
But, on the other hand, our people like free 
speech and appreciate frankness — not forgetting 
that truth should be the North Star of author- 
ship ; and theite is a good deal of truth in what 
Mr. Dickens said about us on returning from 
his first visit to this country." In England, 
the great novelist's friends arranged for a Fare- 
well Banquet on the most sumptuous scale. It 
took place on Saturday evening, November 2d, 
at the Freemasons' Tavern. The new hall was 
specially decorated for the occasion, the panels 
being adorned with laurel leaves, and each in- 
scribed with the name of one of Dickens's works 
in splendid letters of gold. The company num- 
bered between four hundred and five hundred 
gentlemen, including nearly all the eminent 
men in art, literature, science, law, and medi- 
cine. 

Lord Lytton presided, and in the course of a 
magnificent eulogium upon the illustrious nov- 
elist, said : "We are about to intrust our hon- 
ored countryman to the hospitality of those 
kindred shores in which his writings are as 
much household words as they are in the homes 
of England. 

" If I may speak as a politician, I should say 
that no time for his visit could be more happily 
chosen. For our American kinsfolk have con- 
ceived, rightly or wrongly, that they have some 
recent cause of complaint against ourselves, and 
out of all England we could not have selected 
an envoy — speaking not on behalf of our Gov- 
ernment, but of our people — more calculated to 
allay irritation and propitiate good-will. 

^ 5ft Sj^ SfC •!• t* 

" How many hours in which pain and sick- 
ness have changed into cheerfulness and mirth 
beneath the wand of that enchanter ! How 
many a hardy combatant, beaten do"\vn in the 
battle of life — and nowhere on this earth is the 
battle of life sharper than in the commonwealth 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



89 



of America — has taken new hope, and new 
courage, and new force from the manly lessons 
of that unobtrusive teacher." 

He concluded by proposing "A prosperous 
voyage, health, and long life to our illustrious 
guest and countryman, Charles Dickens;" and, 
if we remember the reports given of the banquet 
rightly, the company rose as one man to do hon- 
or to the toast, and drank it with such expres- 
sions of enthusiasm and good-will as are rarely 
to be seen in any public assembly. Again and 
again the cheers burst forth, and it was some 
minutes before silence was restored. 

Mr. Dickens replied in a speech such as no 
one else could have delivered, and towards its 
conclusion he said : " The story of my going to 
America is very easily and briefly told. Since I 
was there before a vast and entirely new gen- 
eration has arisen in the United States. Since 
that time, too, most of the best known of my 
books have been written and published. The 
new generation and the books have come to- 
gether and have kept together, until at length 
numbers of those who have so widely and con- 
stantly read me, naturally desiring a little va- 
riety in the relations between us, have express- 
ed a strong wish that I should read myself. 
This wish, at first conveyed to me through 
public as well as through business channels, 
has gradually become enforced by an immense 
accumulation of letters from private individu- 
als and associations of individuals, all express- 
ing in the same hearty, homely, cordial, unaf- 
fected way a kind of personal aifection for me, 
which I am sure you will agree with me that it 
would be downright insensibility on my part not 
to prize. Little by little this pressure has be- 
come so great that, although, as Charles Lamb 
says, 'My household gods strike a terribly deep 
root,' I have driven them from their places, and 
this day week, at this hour, shall be upon the 
sea. You will readily conceive that I am in- 
spired besides by a natural desire to see for my- 
self the astonishing progress of a quarter of a 
century over there — to grasp the hands of many 
faithful friends whom I left there — to see the 
faces of a multitude of new friends upon whom 
I have never looked — and, though last, not 
least, to use my best endeavors to lay down a 
third cable of intercommunication and alliance 
between the Old World and the New. 

" Twelve years ago, when. Heaven knows, I 
little thought I should ever be bound upon the 
voyage which now lies before me, I wrote in 
that form of my writings which obtains by far 
the most extensive circulation, these words 
about the American nation : ' I know full well 
that whatever little motes my beamy eyes may 



have descried in theirs, that they are a kind, 
large-hearted, generous, and great people.' In 
that faith I am going to see them again. In 
that faith I shall, please God, return from 
them in the spring, in that same faith to live 
and to die. My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, 
I told you in the beginning that I could not 
thank you enough, and Heaven knows I have 
most thoroughly kept my word. If I may 
quote one other short sentence from myself, let 
it imply all that I have left unsaid and yet 
deeply feel; let it, putting a girdle round the 
earth, comprehend both sides of the Atlantic at 
once in this moment. As Tiny Tim observed, 
' God bless us, every one.' " 

The great novelist left London on the follow- 
ing Eriday for Liverpool, being accompanied to 
the station by a host of friends desirous of bid- 
ding him "God speed" and au revoir. The 
directors of the London and North-western 
Company paid Mr. Dickens and party the com- 
pliment of placing at their disposal one of the 
Royal saloon carriages, the appearance of which 
excited great interest at the various stations at 
which the train stopped. On Saturday morn- 
ing Mr. Dickens was on board the Cunard mail- 
steamer " Cuba," commanded by Capt. Stone. 
A second officer's cabin was set aside for his ex- 
clusive use, and every thing done that could in- 
sure his personal comfort. He was accompa- 
nied by his machinist, Mr. Kelly, and a man- 
servant ; and — like a true showman — carried 
with him the arrangements of his own platform, 
with the gas apparatus required for his readings. 

On Eriday, the 23d of the same month, a tel- 
egram, " Safe and well," was received in Lon- 
don, announcing his arrival at Boston. He ar- 
rived there on the 19th, and was received with 
acclamations, Mr. Dolby, his agent, who pre- 
ceded him, had disposed of an immense num- 
ber of tickets. The first reading took place on 
December 2d, at Tremont Temple. After a 
few readings in Boston, he proceeded to New 
York, Washington, and Philadelphia, and read 
to immense audiences, being everywhere re- 
ceived with the greatest enthusiasm. 

One of the papers* there said : " No literary 
man except Thackeray ever had such a wel- 
come from Philadelphia as Charles Dickens re- 
ceived last night at Concert Hall. The selling 
of the tickets two weeks ago almost amounted 
to a disturbance of the peace. Eive hundred 
people in line, standing from midnight till noon, 
poorly represented the general desire to hear the 
great novelist on his first night. Everywhere 
that I looked in the crowded hall I saw some 

* "New York Tribuue," 14th January, ISGS. 



90 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



one not unknown to fame — some one represent- 
ing either the intelligence or the beauty, the 
wealth or the fashion of Philadelphia. It was 
an audience which, in the words of Sergeant 
Buzfuz, I might declare an enlightened, a high- 
minded, a right-feeling^ a dispassionate, a con- 
scientious, a sympathizing, a contemplative, 
and a poetical jury, to judge Charles Dickens 
without fear or favor. The novelist stepped 
upon the stage, his book in his hand, his bou- 
quet in his coat ; but I will not describe to 
readers the face and form many of them know 
so well. Mr. Dickens was received coldly. 
Here was an Englishman who had pulled us to 
pieces and tweaked the national nose by writing 
• Martin Chuzzlewit ' and ' American Notes.' 
Philadelphia held out as long as she could. The 
first smile came in when Bob Cratchit warmed 
himself with a candle, but before Scrooge had 
got through with the first ghost the laughter was 
universal and uproarious. The Christmas din- 
ner of the Cratchits was a tremendous success, 
as was Scrooge's Niece by marriage. There 
was a young lady in white fur and blue ribbons, 
name unknown to the writer, upon whose sym- 
pathies Mr. Dickens played as if she had been a 
piano. A deaf man could have followed his 
story by looking at her face. The goose con- 
vulsed her. The pudding threw her into hys- 
terics ; and when the story came to the sad 
death of Tiny Tim, * my little, little child,' 
tears were streaming down her cheeks. This 
young lady was as good as Mr. Dickens, and all 
the more attractive because she couldn't help it. 
Then, as a joke began to be dimly foreseen, it 
was great to see the faint smile dawning on 
long lines effaces, growing brighter and bright- 
er till it passed from sight to sound, and thun- 
dered to the roof in vast and inextinguishable 
laughter." 

During his visit to America, the great men 
of the land travelled from far and near to be 
present at the readings ; the poet Longfellow 
went three nights in succession, and he after- 
wards declared to a friend that they were "the 
most delightful evenings of his life." 

On Saturday, the 18th April, he was enter- 
tained at a farewell dinner at Delmonico's Ho- 
tel, New York. Two hundred gentlemen sat 
down to it, and Mr. Horace Greeley presided. 
Dickens was somewhat indisposed ; but in re- 
ply to the toast of his health, he gave this in- 
teresting experience of his second visit to Amer- 
ica : " It has been said in your newspapers that 
for months past I have been collecting materi- 
als for and hammering away at a new book on 
America. This has much astonished me, see- 
ing that all that time it has been perfectly well 



known to my publishers, on both sides of the 
Atlantic, that I positively declared that no con- 
sideration on earth should induce me to write 
one. But what I have intended, what I have 
resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek 
to place in you), is, on my return to England, 
in my own person, to bear, for the behoof of 
my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic 
changes in this country as I have hinted at to- 
night. Also, to record that, wherever I have 
been, in the smallest places equally with the 
largest, I have been received with unsurpassa- 
ble politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospital- 
ity, consideration, and with unsurpassable re- 
spect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by 
the nature of my avocation here, and the state 
of my health. This testimony, so long as I 
Ywe, and so long as my descendants have any 
legal right in my books, I shall cause to be 
republished as an appendix to every copy of 
those two books of mine in which I have refer- 
red to America. And this I will do and cause 
to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, 
but because I regard it as an act of plain justice 
and honor." 

The time for Mr. Dickens's departure was 
now close at hand. His last reading was given 
at Steinway Hall on the ensuing Monday even- 
ing. The task finished, he was about to retire, 
but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. 
He knew what his audience wanted — a few 
words — a parting greeting before saying good- 
bye. Their illustrious visitor did not disap- 
point them : " The shadow of one word has im- 
pended over me this evening," said Mr. Dick- 
ens, "and the time has come at length when 
the shadow must fall. It is but a very short 
one, but the weight of such things is not meas- 
ured by their length, and two much shorter 
words express the round of our human exist- 
ence. When I was reading 'David Copper- 
field,' a few evenings since, I felt there was 
more than usual significance in the words of 
Peggotty, ' My future life lies over the sea.' * * * 
The relations which have been set up between 
us must now be broken forever. Be assured, 
however, that you will not pass from my mind. 
I shall often realize you as I see you now, equal- 
ly by my winter fire and in the green English 
summer weather. I shall never recall you as a 
mere public audience, but rather as a host of 
personal friends, and ever with the greatest grat- 
itude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies 
and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God 
bless you, and God bless the land in which I 
leave you !" 

He left America on the 22d of April, and the 
following extract from the * ' New York Tribune " 



LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 



91 



of the day after -will convey the best impression 
of the great respect paid to him, and the general 
regret expressed at his departure : 

"The 'Kussia' left her wharf early yesterday morn- 
ing, and steamed down the bay. When near Staten Isl- 
and, slie rounded to and waited for malls and passen- 
gers to arrive by the tug-boat from Jersey City. When 
the boat came alongside, bearing, among others, M. 
Paul du Chaillu and Mr. G. W. Childs, the passengers 
crowded to the side to catch a glimpse of Mr. Dickens, 
who, leaning over the rail on the quarter-deck of the 
'Eussia,' smiled and nodded to his friends below. 
Two hours before he had left the Westminster Hotel, 
amidst the cheers of those who had gathered to bid 
-. him farewell, and, as he entered his carriage, bouquets 
tossed by fair hands from windows fell at his feet. In 
order to avoid a crowd of spectators, he left the city 
' from the foot of Spring Street, in the private tug-boat 
of his friend Mr. Morgan. On board the tug were Mr. 
James T. Fields, of Boston ; Mr. Anthony and Mr. 
Eytinge, artists ; Mr. William Winter, Mr. Osgood, of 
Ticknor & Fields (this gentleman has accompanied 
Mr. Dickens throughout his American campaign) : 
Mr. H. D. Palmer and his associate, Mr. H. C. Jarrett, 
of Niblo's ; and Mr. Marshall B. Wild, of Boston. The 
last-named gentleman was Mr. Dickens's ticket agent. 
Before he bade his farewell, Mr. Dickens acknowl- 
edged the value of his agent's ser\aces by making 
him a present of a check for $150. They steamed 
down the bay, followed by the police boat, having on 
board Mr. Thurlow Weed, the Superintendent of Po- 
lice, and a number of ladies bearing beautiful bou- 
quets for Mr. Dickens. They reached the ' Eussia,' 
and were soon on board. The state-room prepared 
for Mr. Dickens was laden with flowers. 

"A basket, elegantly arranged, was presented to 
him by Mr. Childs. In the centre, in white carna- 
tions, upon a ground of red roses, was the word ' Fare- 
well,' and below, the initials ' C. D.' 

"It was a lovely day — a clear blue sky overhead. 
As he stood resting on the rail, chatting with this 
friend and writing an autograph for that one, the ge- 
nial face all aglow with delight, it was seemingly 
hard to say the word 'Farewell,' yet the tug-boat 
screamed the note of warning, and those who must 
return to the city went dowTi the side. 

"All had left save Mr. Fields. 'Boz' held the hand 
of the publisher within his own. There was an un- 
mistakable look on both faces. The lame foot came 
down from the rail, and the friends were locked in 
each other's arms. 

" Mr. Fields then hastened down the side, not daring 
to look behind. The lines were ' cast off.' 

" A cheer was given for Mr. Dolby, when Mr. Dick- 
ens patted him approvingly upon the shoulder, saying, 
' Good boy.' 

"Another cheer for Mr. Dickens, and the tug steam- 
ed- away. 

"'Good-bye, "Boz!"' 

" ' Good-bye !' from Mr. Fields, who stood the cen- 
tral figure of a group of three, Messrs. Da Chaillu and 
Childs upon each side. 

"Then 'Boz' put his hat upon his cane and waved 
it, and the answer came, 'Good-bye !' and ' God bless 
you, every one !' " 

After a pleasant homeward voyage, he ar- 
rived at Liverpool on 1st May, 1 868. 

During his stay, he was besieged to such an 
extent with applications for his autograph that 
he was obliged to have a printed form in re- 

piy: 

" To compli/ with your modest request would not 
he reasonably j^ossible.^^ 



To envelop, direct, and post these replies, 
the services of three secretaries were required. 

Applications of another kind, however, were 
personall}^ attended to. Thus it was told there 
that a lady of Charleston, a great admirer of 
Mr. Dickens's writings, but unfortunately para- 
lyzed in her limbs from an accident, so that she 
could not walk, wrote to ask if the doors of the 
" Temple " could be opened to her earlier than 
the usual hour, that she might be lifted into the 
hall unobserved. Mr. Dickens immediately ac- 
knowledged the note, gave the requisite order 
for the lady's accommodation, and claimed the 
honor of presenting her, besides, with compli- 
mentary tickets of admission. 

It is a curious fact that the smallest house 
which welcomed Mr. Dickens anywhere in Amer- 
ica was Rochester, New York, where the reading 
"netted" only ^2500. The largest receipts, 
on several occasions exceeded ^6000. 

Mr. Dickens's capabilities as a pedestrian 
had been discussed in America long before he 
arrived there, and our transatlantic friends were 
not satisfied until a "match " had been brought 
about. This was arranged at Boston, between 
Mr. Dolby (Mr. Dickens's English agent) and 
Mr. Osgood (the American publisher). The 
distance was to be twelve miles, and the contest 
was to take place on the Mill-dam Road, to- 
wards Newton, Mr. Dickens and Mr. Fields 
(the publisher) were to be umpires, and had to 
walk the whole twelve miles with their respect- 
ive men. Immediately the match was made 
known, the papers teemed with particulars con- 
cerning it. " Dickens," one journal said, 
"was a superb pedestrian, good for thirty miles 
' on end ' any day." The articles were dra"«Ti 
up by the great author, and subscribed to by all 
four gentlemen. The public were, however, not 
made acquainted with the place or the time un- 
til after the contest was over. The affair came 
off on the following Saturday, at twelve o'clock. 
The pedestrians were all, it is said, " appropri- 
ately costumed, and they went at a tremendous 
pace. The first six miles were accomplished in 
one hour and twenty-three minutes, and the re- 
turn six miles were finished by Mr. Osgood (the 
American) in one hour and twenty-five minutes, 
he winning the match by exactly seven minutes. 
An elegant dinner was given by Mr. Dickens at 
the Parker House, the same evening, to signal- 
ize the occasion." This anecdote shows the 
heartiness with which he entered into any 
healthy out-door sport he cared to join in, and 
his gameness and youthful vigor in keeping up 
with mfen not more than half his age. 

While we are upon the subject of our author's 
pedestrian tastes, we may mention that, like Dr. 



92 



LIFE OF CIIAKLES DICKENS. 



Jolinson, Dickens was singularly fond of tho old 
city streets and alleys when emptied of the busy 
throng that filled them in the day-time. Lord 
Jeffrey, writing to him once, remarked : " How 
funny that besoin of yours for midnight rambling 
in city streets; and how curious thatMacaulay 
should have the same taste or fancy ! If I 
thought there was any such inspiration as yours 
to be caught by the practice, I should expose my 
poor irritable trachea, I think, to a nocturnal 
pilgrimage, without scruple. But, I fear, I should 
have my venture for my pains." 

The reader may remember our extract from 
his letter to the Countess of Blessington, where 
he says — in allusion to his habit of walking at 
nights while planning out a new novel — "I go 
wandering about at night into the strangest 
places, according to my usual propensity at 
such times, seeking rest and finding none." 

A story is told that on one pedestrian occasion 
he was taken for a " smasher." He had re- 
tired to rest at Gad's Hill, but found he could 
not sleep, when he determined to turn out, 
dress, and walk up to London — some thirty 
miles. He reached the suburbs in the gray 
morning, and applied at an "early" coffee- 
house for some refreshment, tendering for the 
same a sovereign, the smallest coin he happen- 
ed to have about him. 

"It's abad'un,"saidtheman,bitingatit, and 
trying to twist it in all directions, " and I shall 
give you in charge." Sure enough the coin did 
have a suspicious look. Mr. Dickens had car- 
ried some substance in his pocket which had ox- 
ydized it. Seeing that matters looked awkward, 
he at once said, " But I am Charles Dickens!" 

"Come, that won't do; any man could say 
he was ' Charles Dickens.' How do I know?" 
The man had been victimized only the week 
previously, and at length, at Mr. Dickens's sug- 
gestion, it was arranged that they should go to 
a chemist, to have the coin tested with aquafor- 
tis. In due course, when the shops opened, a 
chemist was found, who immediately recognized 
the great novelist — notwithstanding his dusty 
appearance — and the coffee-house keeper was 
satisfactorily convinced that he had not been 
entertaining a "smasher." 

It is pleasant to know that, upon the great 
novelist's return to England, the farmers and 
neighbors around Gad's Hill draped their 
houses with flags to receive him. " He was ex- 
tremely popular in the place where he lived," 
says our informant; "he was a man of practical 
charity at home and abroad, and gave away 
large sums judiciously every year. Indeed he 
would get up in the night and go ten miles to 
aid any one who was suffering." 



"No Thoroughftire " was the title of the 
Christmas number of "All the Year Hound," 
which appeared during Dickens's absence in the 
Christmas of 1867. It consisted of a sensation- 
al story, the joint production of Dickens and 
Wilkie Collins. 

It was dramatized by the authors, and had a 
most successful run at the Adelphi Theatre for 
one hundred and fifty-one nights, and was then 
produced at the Royal Standard by the same 
company, wliich consisted of the following dis- 
tinguished actors and actresses : Messrs. Benja- 
min Webster, Fechter, Belmore, and Neville ; 
Mesdames Mellon and Billington, and Miss Car- 
lotta Leclercq. 

"Holiday Romance" and "George Silver- 
man's Explanation," both by Dickens, and pub- 
lished in " All the Year Round," in the months 
of January to March, 18G8, attracted some slight 
attention, but did not add very much to his 
fame as an author. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE FAREWELL READINGS. — FAILING HEALTH. 

The "Farewell Readings," which com- 
menced towards the close of 18G8, will be too 
familiar to most readers to require other than a 
passing mention of them. The Messrs. Chap- 
pell, the well-known music publishers of Bond 
Street, had contracted with Mr. Dickens for a 
given number of final readings, to take place in 
the principal towns of England, Ireland, and 
Scotland ; and the enormous crowds who throng- 
ed to hear them showed the unabated interest 
all classes took in the great novelist and his 
books. 

In the month of November, 1868, a new se- 
ries of " All the Year Round " appeared, the first 
series having reached twenty volumes. It was 
marked by the disappearance of his popular 
Christmas number, by reason— Mr. Dickens said 
— that had it been so extensively and regular- 
ly and often imitated, that it was in very great 
danger of becoming tiresome — a statement which 
was not at all well received by the press, which 
said, very truly, that to the great body of read- 
ers the absence of the Christmas number would 
be a national disappointment. 

Continuing the readings in London and the 
provinces, Dickens at last reached Liverpool, 
where it was forthwith resolved to entertain 
him at a grand banquet. This took place on 
Saturday evening, the 10th April, 1869, at the 
St. George's Hall, the Mayor presiding. At 
the time it was spoken of as being one of the 



LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 



93 



most sumptuous gatherings of the kind ever 
seen in this country. The number of ladies 
and gentlemen who sat down to dinner was 
about seven hundred. The invited guests, in 
addition to the guests of the evening, were Lord 
Dufferin, M. Alphonse Esquiros, Lord Hough- 
ton, A. Trollope, Palgrave Simpson, W. Hep- 
worth Dixon, Andrew Halliday, Joseph Mayer, 
F.S.A., G. A. Sala, A. Trollope, Jun., and 
Charles Dickens, Jun. Next to Mr. Dickens, 
Lord Dufferin made the best speech, and some 
of his allusions to the good effects which the 
writings of their guest were destined to exercise 
over all English-speaking peoples were admira- 
ble. Concerning the friendly hint which Lord 
Houghton gave our author, that, had he sought 
parliamentary honors, he might have done his 
country good service, and have been rewarded by 
titles of honor, this extract from his speech has 
a biographical significance : " When I first took 
literature as my profession in England, I calmly 
resolved within myself that, whether I suc- 
ceeded or whether I failed, literature should 
be my sole profession. It appeared to me at 
that time that it was not so well understood in 
England as it was in other countries that litera- 
ture was a dignified profession, by which any 
man might stand or fall. I made a compact 
with myself that in my person literature should 
stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself ; and 
there is no consideration on earth which would 
induce me to break that bargain." 

Continuing the "Farewell Eeadings" with 
unvaried success, he reached Preston a fort- 
night after, but became so ill there that he was 
forbidden by his medical advisers to read again 
until the following year. A personal friend, 
who was with him on this journey, thus de- 
scribes his indisposition. The friend had gone 
down to Leeds at Mr. Dickens's request : 

"After the business of the evening w^as over 
we supped together at the Queen's Hotel, and I 
noticed that he (Dickens) looked jaded and 
worn, and had to a certain extent lost that 
marvellous elasticity of spirits which was his 
great characteristic. He was suffering, too, 
from an inflammation of the ball of the foot, 
which had previously occasioned him some an- 
noyance, and the origin and cause of which 
could never be rightly settled by his medical 
attendants, although among those whom he had 
consulted about it were Sir Henry Thompson 
and Professor Syme. 

" He relieved himself of his boot immediate- 
ly on gaining the room, and while he remained 
sat with his foot swathed in lotioned bandages ; 
but he was evidently fatigued and depressed, 
and retired early. The next morning at break- 



fast his ordinary cheerfulness had returned, and 
he rallied the writer, who was about to visit 
Sheffield in the rain which was then pouring 
down, about his probable chances of pleasure, 
remarking that 'it was just the kind of day in 
which the loveliness of the locality would be 
seen to the highest advantage.' On the Thurs- 
day in the next week Mr. Dickens was to read 
at Preston ; but, still feeling ill, had summoned 
his friend and usual medical attendant, Mr. 
Frank Beard, of Welbeck Street, to meet him 
there. On Mr. Beard's arrival he at once saw 
the gravity of the case, and instantly ordered 
Mr. Dickens then and there tr> give up all bodi- 
ly and mental exertion for the time. In vain 
it was urged that an enormous number of tickets 
had been sold for that evening's reading. Mr. 
Beard would hear of no excuse, but carried off 
Mr, Dickens with him to London by the five 
o'clock train. 

" The precaution thus seasonably taken seem- 
ed to have due effect. Mr. Dickens retired to 
his residence at Gad's Hill, and, implicitly obey- 
ing the orders of his physicians, appeared soon 
to regain his normal state of physical health 
and strength. Indeed, a very few weeks after- 
wards, replying to an inquiry made by a friend 
as to his condition, he wrote, 'After all that 
has been said, I feel almost like an impostor ; 
I am so unconscionably well.' "* 

This illness served to bring him under the 
notice of several bigots and fanatics, who pester- 
ed him with tracts, and preached at him. But 
soon after, in his own periodical and in his own 
earnest manner, he showed them how distaste- 
ful these pertinacious attentions were to him, 
and how very unnecessary he considered them. 
It is believed now that these were the first 
symptoms of the malady which finally carried 
him off. 

The great International University Boat-race 
between Oxford and Harvard having taken place 
on the 27th August, the London Eowing-club 
invited the crews to dinner at the Crystal Palace 
on the following Monday. Desirous of show- 
ing his American friends the love he bore their 
country, and of expressing his sympathy with a 
healthy and manly exercise, he at once accepted 
the invitation to be present, and on the occasion 
delivered one of his very best speeches, not- 
withstanding that he was in the doctor's hands 
at the time. 

His health continuing to improve, he was, on 
the 27th of September, enabled to deliver the 
annual addi'ess at the commencement of the 
winter session of the Birmingham and Midland 

* " Observer," Juue 12th, ISTO. 



94 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



Institute, of which Mr. Dickens was President. 
This was his longest effort in public speaking, 
and although somewhat severe and didactic 
when compared with former speeches, it is an 
admirable example of his inimitable style. It 
was delivered — one who was pi-esent during the 
delivery informs us — without note of any kind, 
except the quotation from Sydney Smith, and 
without a single pause. Respecting Mr. Dick- 
ens's concluding words, when acknowledging 
the vote of thanks: "My faith in the people 
governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my 
faith in the People governed is, on the whole, 
illimitable," considerable discussion arose in the 
public prints as to the precise meaning the 
speaker desired to convey. But in the follow- 
ing January (1870), when he attended at the 
Institution to distribute the prizes and certifi- 
cates to the most successful students, he gave 
this explanation : 

"When I was here last autumn, I made, in 
reference to some remarks of your respected 
member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my 
political faith — or perhaps I should better say, 
want of faith. It imported that I have very 
little confidence in the people who govern us — 
please to observe ' people ' there will be with a 
small ' p ' — but that I have great confidence in 
the People whom they govern — please to ob- 
serve ' People ' there with a large ' P.' This 
was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with 
no evil intention, I am absolutely sure, in some 
quarters inversely explained. Perhaps, as the 
inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but 
one which I do see rather frequently quoted as 
if there were grains of truth at the bottom of 
it — a fiction called the 'Circumlocution Office' 
— and perhaps also as the writer of an idle book 
or two, whose public opinions are not obscurely 
stated — perhaps in these respects I do not suf- 
ficiently bear in mind Hamlet's caution to speak 
by the card, lest equivocation should undo me. 

"Now I complain of nobody; but simply in 
order that there may be no mistake as to what 
I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will 
restate my meaning, and I will do so in the 
words of a great thinker, a great writer, and a 
great scholar,* whose death, unfortunately for 
mankind, cut short his ' History of Civilization 
in England:' 'They may talk as they will 
about reforms which Government has intro- 
duced and improvements to be expected from 
legislation, but whoever will take a wider and 
more commanding view of human affairs will 
soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. 
They will leai-n that lawgivers are nearly al- 

* Henry Thomas Buckle. 



ways the obstructers of society instead of its 
helpers, and that in the extremely few cases 
where their measures have turned out well, 
their success has been owing to the fact that, 
contrary to their usual custom, they have im- 
plicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have 
been — as they always should be — the mere serv- 
ants of the people, to whose wishes they are 
bound to give a public and legal sanction.' " 

During the past winter Dickens resumed his 
readings at St. James's Hall, and, to avoid the 
necessity of frequent journeyings to and from 
Gad's Hill, he rented for six months the town 




.MHBm 




NO. 5 HYDE PAEK PLACE (lSG9-'70). 

[Mr. Milner Gibson's house, which Dickens rented 
during the winter months. It was the temporary 
home where much of his last unfinished work, "Ed- 
win Drood," was written. He only lived a few weeks 
after his return to Gad's Hill.] 

house of his old friend, Mr, Milner Gibson, in 
Hyde Park Place, which he continued to occu- 
py up to the end of May last. This house in 
future will have a special interest, from the fact 
that here, in his bedroon on the first floor, with 
the roar of Oxford Street beneath him — his 
studies suffered no interruption from street 
noises — a large part of his unfinished work, 
" Edwin Drood," was written. 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



95 



We may mention that Mr. Dickens's father- 
in-law, Mr. George Hogarth, died on the 12th 
February, in his 87th year. In his earlier days 
he was Sir Walter Scott's law agent, and was 
personally acquainted with most of the literary 
characters of the day. Christopher North, in 
"Noctes Ambrosianse," makes mention of him. 
He was musical critic on the staff of the "Daily 
News," from the time of its starting until 1866, 
when failing health compelled him to resign his 
post. 

On the 15th of March, Dickens gave his 
"Farewell reading" at St. James's Hall. It 
was his favorite selection — the "Christmas Car- 
ol," and "The Trial from Pickwick." Long 
before the hour appointed the thoroughfare lead- 
ing to the hall was blocked up, and when the 
doors were opened every seat was instantly 
taken, and many thousands of people were un- 
able to obtain admittance. As if to assure his 
auditors that his powers were undiminished, he 
read with more than usual spirit and energy, 
and his voice was clear to the last. At the 
conclusion, and after the "Trial from Pick- 
wick," in which the speeches of the opposing 
counsel, and the owlish gravity of the judge, 
seemed to be delivered and depicted with great- 
er dramatic power than ever, the applause of 
the audience rang for several minutes through 
the hall ; and when it had subsided, Mr. Dick- 
ens, with evidently strong emotion, but in his 
usual distinct and impressive manner, spoke as 
follows : 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, — It would be 
worse than idle — for it would be hypocritical 
and unfeeling — if I were to disguise that I close 
this episode in my life with feelings of very con- 
siderable pain. For some fifteen years, in this 
hall and in many kindred places, I have had the 
honor of presenting my own cherished ideas be- 
fore you for your recognition, and, in closely 
observing your reception of them, have enjoyed 
an amount of artistic delight and instruction 
which, perhaps, is given to few men to know. 
In this task, and in every other I have ever un- 
dertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, al- 
ways imbued with a sense of duty to them, and 
always striving to do his best, I have been uni- 
formly cheered by the readiest response, the 
most generous sympathy, and the most stimu- 
lating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it 
well, at the full flood-tide of your favor, to re- 
tire upon those older associations between us 
which date from much farther back than these, 
and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to 
the art that first brought us together. Ladies 
and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from 
this time I hope that you may enter, in your 



own homes, on a new series of readings, at 
which my assistance will be indispensable ;* 
but from these garish lights I vanish now for 
evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, 
and affectionate farewell." 

The speaker then retired, amidst acclamations 
of the most enthusiastic description, hats and 
handkerchiefs being waved in every part of the 
hall. 

Since the illustrious author's decease, this ad- 
dress has acquired a peculiar significance by rea- 
son of that almost prophetic line : " From these 
garish lights I vanish now for evermore." 

Shortly after, on April 5, h« was with his 
friends the News-venders, presiding at the an- 
nual dinner of their Benevolent and Provident 
Institution. He was in excellent spirits, and 
his speech upon the occasion was a most humor- 
ous one. Those who were present will remem- 
ber with what inimitable gravity he told this 
story : 

"I was once present at a social discussion, 
which originated by chance. The subject was, 
' What was the most absorbing and longest- 
lived passion in the human breast ? What was 
the passion so powerful that it would almost 
induce the generous to be mean, the careless to 
be cautious, the guileless to be deeply design- 
ing, and the dove to emulate the serpent ?' A 
daily editor of vast experience and great acute- 
ness, who was one of the company, considerably 
surprised us by saying with the greatest confi- 
dence that the passion in question was the pas- 
sion of getting orders for the play. 

"Tliere had recently been a terrible ship- 
wreck, and very few of the Surviving sailors had 
escaped in an open boat. One of these, on 
making land, came straight to London, and 
straight to the newspaper ofiice, with his story 
of how he had seen the ship go down before his 
eyes. That young man had witnessed the most 
terrible contention between the powers of fire 
and water for the destruction of that ship and 
of every one on board. He had rowed away 
among the floating, dying, and the sinking 
dead. He had floated by day, and he had 
frozen by night, with no shelter and no food, 
and, as he told this dismal tale, he rolled his 
haggard eyes about the room. When he had 
finished, and the tale had been noted down 
from his lips, he was cheered, and refreshed, 
and soothed, and asked if any thing could be 
done for him. Even within him that master- 
passion was so strong that he immediately re- 
plied he should like an order for the play." 

"One of his latest acts in the way of busi- 

* Alluding to tlie forthcoming serial story of " Ed- 
win Drood." 



9G 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



ness," Mr. Hingston writes to us, "was in re- 
lation to Miss Glyn, and her then approaching 
reading at St. James's Hall, with her departure 
for Australia. I persuaded Miss Glyn, some 
five weeks since, to take a trip to Australia, and 
I drew out a form of agreement. Dickens took 
great interest in her welfare ; the agreement had 
to be submitted to him. It was sent back with 
his annotations and suggestions, all of which 
were eminently practical, and very illustrative 
of his keen business abilities. He acted as a 
lawyer would for a client." 

Towards the end of the month he again be- 
came indisposed. A promise that he had made 
to dine at the annual dinner of the General 
Theatrical Fund he foflnd himself unable to 
keep, and at the last moment he telegraphed 
that he was too unwell to attend. Two days 
later he sent a short note to one of his inti- 
mates, postponing a little expedition which 
had been arranged, and stating that the old 
enemy in his foot was again causing him annoy- 
ance. 

On 2d May he was better — sufficiently well, 
indeed, to accept the invitation of his artist 
friends, and to dine with them at the opening 
of the Royal Academy. 

Mr. Arthur Locker writes: "Tlie last time 
I saw him was a few weeks since, when I had 
the pleasure of meeting him at dinner. To all 
outward appearance he then looked like a man 
who would live and work until he was fourscore. 
I was esj)ecially struck by the brilliancy and 
vivacity of his eyes. There seemed as much 
life and animation in them as in twenty ordi- 
nary pair of eyes." 

It was at the Academy dinner that he made 
his last public speech, and his concluding Avords 
upon this occasion were a tribute to the memory 
of his dear friend, Daniel Maclise, then recently 
deceased: " Since," he said, "Ifirst entered the 
public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been 
my constant fortune to number among my near- 
est and dearest friends members of the Royal 
Academy who have been its grace and pride. 
They have so dropped from my side, one by one, 
that I already begin to feel like the Spanish 
monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to 
believe that the only realities around him were 
the pictures which he loved, and that all the 
moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a 
shadow and a dream. 

"For many years I was one of the two most 
intimate friends and most constant companions 
of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his 
chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, 
but of his prodigious fertility of mind and won- 
derful wealth of intellect, I mav confidentlv as- 



sert that they would have made him, if he had 
been so minded, at least as great a writer as he 
was a painter. The gentlest and most modest 
of men, the freshest as to his generous appre- 
ciation of young aspirants, and the frankest 
and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable 
of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sus- 
taining the true dignity of his vocation, with- 
out one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely 
natural at the last as at the first, ' in wit a 
man, simplicity a child,' no artist, of whatever 
denomination, I make bold to say, ever went 
to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure 
from dross, or having devoted himself with a 
truer chivalry to the art goddess whom he wor- 
shipped." 



CHAPTER XXX. 

INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN. — LAST ILLNESS. 
DEATH. — BURIAL IN WESTMINSTER ABHET. 

Only since the death of Mr. Dickens is it 
that the high respect in which Her Majesty has 
always held the great novelist and his writings 
has become generally known, but for many 
years past our Queen has taken the liveliest in- 
terest in liis literary labors, and has frequently 
expressed a desire for an interview with him. 
And here it may not be uninteresting to men- 
tion a circumstance in illustration of Her Maj- 
esty's regard for her late distinguished subject 
which came under the writer's personal notice. 
Six years ago, just before the library of Mr. 
Thackeray was sold off at Palace Green, Ken- 
sington, a catalogue of the books was sent to 
Her Majesty — in all probability by her request. 
She desired some memorial of the great man, 
and preferred to make her own selection by 
purchase rather than ask the family for any 
memento by way of gift. There were books 
with odd drawings from Thackeray's pen and 
pencil ; there were others crammed with MS. 
notes, but there was one lot thus described in 
the catalogue : 

DicKEiiS (C.) A CnBiSTMAS Caeol, in prose, 1S43 ; 
Presentation Copy. 

INSCEIBEB 

" W. M. Thackeray, from Clmrles Dickens (whom he 
inade very hairpy once a long way from home).''' 

Her Majesty expressed the strongest desire 
to possess this, and sent an unlimited commission 
to buy it. The original published price of the 
book was 5s. It became Her Majesty's prop- 
erty for £25 10s., and was at once taken to the 
palace. 

The personal interview Her Majesty had long 
expressed a desire to have with Mr. Dickens 



LIFE OF CI-IARLES DICKENS. 



1)7 



took place on the 9th April, 1870, when he re- 
ceived her commands to attend her at Bucking- 
ham Palace, and accordingly did so, being intro- 
duced by his friend, Mr. Arthur Jlelps, the 
clerk of the Privy Council. 

The interview was a lengthened one, and 
most satisfactory to both. In the course of it 
Her Majesty expressed to him her warm inter- 
est in, and admiration of his works ; and, on 
parting, presented him with a copy of her own 
book, " Our Life in the Highlands," with an 
autograph inscription, "Victoria R. to Charles 
Dickens," on the fly-leaf; at the same time 
making a charmingly modest and graceful re- 
mark as to the relative positions occupied in 
the world of letters by the donor and the recip- 
ient of the book. 

Soon after his return home, he sent to Her 
Majesty an edition of his collected works ; and 
when the clerk of the Council recently went to 
Balmoral, the Queen, knowing the friendsliip 
that existed between Mr. Dickens and Mr. 
Helps, showed the latter where she had placed 
the gift of the great novelist. This was in her 
own private library, in order that she might al- 
ways see the books; and Her Majesty express- 
ed her desire that Mr. Helps should inform the 
great novelist of this arrangement.* 

Since our author's decease the journal with 
which he was formerly connected has said : 

" We were not at liberty at that time to 
make known that the Queen was then person- 
ally occupied with the consideration of some 
means by which she might, in her public capaci- 
ty, express her sense of the value of Mr. Dick- 
ens's services to his country and to literature. 
It may now be stated that the Queen was' ready 
to confer an}^ distinction which Mr. Dickens's 
known views and tastes would permit him to 
accept, and that after more than one title of 
honor had been declined, Her Majesty desired 
that he would, at least, accept a place in her 
Privy Council." 

Three days before this he had attended the 
levee and been presented to her son H. R. H. 
the Prince of Wales, introduced by the Earl 
De Grey and Ripon. 

His daughter. Miss Dickens, was presented 
at court to Her Majesty on the 10th of the fol- 
lowing month, introduced by the Countess Rus- 
sell. 

As recently as the 17th of May last, among 
- the names appearing in the "Court Circular" 

* Immediately on his return from Balmoral, Mr. 

Helps wrote to Mr. Dickens, in pursuance of Her 
I Majesty's desire ; but the letter that contained so re- 
' markable a tribute to the great novelist could only 

have reached Gad's Hill while he lay unconscious and 

dying. 

7 



as having attended the State Ball at Bucking- 
ham Palace on that day, were those of Mr. and 
Miss Dickens. 

The fact of Mr. Dickens going more into 
society than usual during tlie past spring, and 
entertaining his friends — always with the ut- 
most hospitality — rather more frequently than 
was his custom, had been observed by those 
who knew him. But he continued to complain 
that he was not well, and when he felt a little 
of his old robust health returning to him he 
seemed to desire the recreation of society, the 
company of friends. Literary composition was 
a task — not a pleasure, as formerly. 

As showing his great fondness for the stage, 
it may be mentioned that almost the last — if 
not the very last — occasion on which he appear- 
ed in London society, was in connection with 
an exhibition of amateur theatricals given at 
the house of Mr. Freake, at South Kensington, 
only a very few days before his death. 

" The Mystery of Edwin Drood," we are told, 
gave its author more trouble than any of his 
former works. He complained of this, perhaps 
with a sad presage of the truth. He had, he 
thought, told too much of the story in the early 
numbers, and his thoughts did not flow so freely 
as of yore. 

The personal friend, who has before assisted 
us with his reminiscences, shall tell the rest : 

" Unquestiotlably he had very much aged in 
appearance during the two previous years ; the 
thought-graven lines in his face were deeper, 
the beard and hair were more grizzled, the com- 
plexion ruddier, but not so healthy in hue. He 
walked, too, less and less actively — latterly, in- 
deed, dragging one leg rather wearily behind 
him. But he maintained the bluff, frank, 
hearty presence, and the deep cheery voice ; 
his hand given to his friend had all its aflfec- 
tionate grip, and the splendid beauty of the 
dark eyes remained undimmed to the last. 

"How that last came about is now well 
known. He returned home to Gad's Hill, 
where, during his absence, some ornamental al- 
terations, which he had previously planned, had 
been carried out, on Tuesday, the 31st of May. 
He was not then in good health, and complained 
that his work fatigued and worried him. On 
Wednesday, while sitting at dinner with his sis- 
ter-in-law. Miss Hogarth, a change came over the 
expression of his face, which alarmed his com- 
panion. She proposed to send for medical as- 
sistance, but he refused, putting his hand to his 
face, complaining of toothache, and desiring 
that the window might be shut. It was shut 
at once, and he rose to leave the room, but af- 
ter taking a few steps, he fell heavily on his 



98 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



left side, and remained unconscious until his 
death, which took place at ten minutes past six, 
on Thursday, June 9, 1870, just twenty-four 
hours after the attack. Medical assistance had 
been summoned ; Mr. Frank Beard, Mr. Steele, 
of Strood, and Dr. Russell Reynolds all saw him, 
but he was beyond the reach of science. 

" Pie died of apoplexy — an effusion of blood 
on the brain — and an attack of this kind must 
have been apprehended by Mr. Frank Beard, 
when he caused such prompt and decisive 
measures to be taken last year at Preston." 

That he died from over- work is now too clear. 
The day preceding his death had been passed 
at the desk in literary composition and corre- 
spondence, and already three letters written by 
him on that day have been published. 

Only a few weeks before he wrote to a friend : 
*'I have 'placed' your touching poem, 'The 
God's Acre,' which will appear in the next 
number." The poem describes a very old man 
and a very young child in a church-yard on a 
sunny Sunday ; the old man reflecting, the 
child gathering flowers ; and predicts that, as 
the " old, old fruit has ripened, death will not 
tarry long." Contrary to probability, it is the 
little child that dies within a few days, and not 
the octogenarian. The verses conclude with a 
reflection that, in the after-light shed upon it 
by Mr. Dickens's early death, possesses a mourn- 
ful interest : 

"Whom the gods love die early: 

Our Father kuoweth best, 
And it is wrong to murmur 

At the high behest. 
Sleep gently, blighted^blossom ; 

Sleep, and take thy rest." 

When Mr. Helps received the news of Dick- 
en's death he immediately telegraphed the fact 
to her Majesty at Balmoral, and received the 
subjoined sympathetic response: " From Col- 
onel Ponsonby to Mr. Helps, Council Ofiice — 
The Queen commands me to express her deep- 
est regret at the sad news of Charles Dickens's 
death." 

He died on the anniversary of the dreadful 
Staplehurst railway accident, and the shock his 
nerves received on that occasion it is believed 
he never entirely got over. 

" The friends in the habit of meeting Mr. 
Dickens privately recall now the energy with 
which he depicted that dreadful scene, and how, 
as the climax of his story came, and its dread 
interest grew, he would rise from the table and 
literally act the parts of the various sufferers to 
whom he lent a helping hand. One of the 
first sui'geons of the day, who was present soon 
after the Staplehurst occurrence, remarked that 



' the worst of these railway accidents was the 
difficulty of determining the period at which 
the system could be said to have survived the 
shock, and that instances were on record of two 
or three years having gone by before the suffer- 
er knew that he was seriously hurt.' " 

As if with a presentiment of what was coming, 
he completed his^will just seven days before he 
was struck down. After his wishes had been put 
into legal form by his solicitors, he copied out 
the entire document in his own handwriting. 
By a codicil to this document he bequeathed 
the whole of his interest in "All the Year 
Round " to his acting editor and eldest son, 
coupling the bequest with such private instruc- 
tions as would, he believed, insure the character 
and merit of the periodical remaining unchanged 
after he had gone. Mr, John Forster, who had 
been on intimate terms with Dickens for more 
than thirty years, and Miss Hogarth, his sister- 
in-law, "and the best friend I ever had," to 
use his own words, were his appointed execu- 
tors. 

His affairs had been left in perfect order — in 
that order which, to the great man throughout 
life, was law. Concerning the disposition of 
his remains clear instructions were also left be- 
hind. Pie desired no publicity about his funer- 
al, none of the well-meant assembling of friends 
when his remains should be committed to the 
earth. It is understood that he had expressed 
a wish to lie in his own favorite Rochester, as 
near as possible to the ruins of the old castle 
there, and in a spot which he had already 
pointed out. The burial-ground referred to is 
adjacent to the walls of the castle, and belongs 
to the parish of St. Nicholas, Rochester. It has 
been closed for some time, and for it to be re- 
opened permission of the Secretary of State 
would have to be obtained. 

But immediately following the sad intelli- 
gence of his death came the universally ex- 
pressed desire that his remains should rest in 
Westminster Abbey — in that Poet's Comer 
which has been consecrated to the greatest, the 
wisest, the best of our countrymen. Dean 
Stanley at once communicated with the family, 
and in an.interview with Mr. Charles Dickens, 
Jun., begged that the national wish might be 
complied with. This was on Friday. From 
that time until Monday evening the matter was 
under earnest consideration. Mr. Dickens's 
family took counsel with their father's dearest 
and oldest friends, and after due deliberation 
and consultation on the terms of the written in- 
structions they held, asked the Dean of West- 
minster whether it would be possible to have 
certain conditions complied with if they con- 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



99 



sented that the interment should be at West- 
minster ? 

The answer was satisfactory, and arrange- 
ments were at once made for the funeral to 
take place in the most private manner possible, 
on the following day, Tuesday, the 14th June, 
1870. A special train, bearing his remains, 
left Rochester early in the morning. At the 
Charing Cross station a waiting-room had been 
set apart for the mourners, and on the arrival 
of the body, three plain mourning coaches, hav- 
ing none of the feathers or dismal frippery of 
the undertaker, drew up to receive those per- 
sonal friends and relatives who were to witness 
the burial of the great man. In coming to the 
[^hhej, in the first coach were the late Mr. 
Dickens's children — Mr. Charles Dickens, Jun. ; 
Mr. Harry Dickens, Miss Dickens, Mrs. Charles 
Collins. In the second coach were Mrs. Aus- 
tin, his sister ; Mrs. Charles Dickens, Jun. ; 
Miss Hogarth, his sister-in-law ; Mr. John 
Forster. In the third coach, Mr. Frank Beard, 
his medical attendant ; Mr. Charles Collins, 
his son-in-law ; Mr. Ouvry, his solicitor ; Mr. 
Wilkie Collins ; Mr. Edmund Dickens, his 
nephew. 

Upon reaching the Abbey, the doors were 
immediately closed and the coaches dismissed. 
The ceremony was at once proceeded with. 
The Dean read our solemn burial-service in a 
manner which showed how strong were his 
own emotions ; and the great organ chimed 
subdued and low. The solemnity of the scene 
was indeed striking — the vast place empty, 
save for the little group of heart-stricken peo- 
ple by an open grave. A plain oak coffin, with 
a brass plate bearing the inscription : 

CHARLES DICKENS, . 
BOEN FEBEUAEY Tth, 1812 ; 
DIED JUNE 9th, 18T0, 

a coffin strewed with wreaths and flowers by 
the female mourners, and then — dust to dust, 
and ashes to ashes ! — such was the funeral of 
the great man who has gone. There were no 
cloaks, no crapes, no bands or scarfs — none of 
that mocking paraphernalia of the professional 
undertaker which Dickens so strongly objected 
to. When thfe subject of his funeral was being 
discussed, Mr. Oilier told us how strongly the 
great man had objected to take part in the cer- 
emony which was performed over the grave of 
Leigh Hunt, in Kensal Green, during the past 
summer. 

" In August last," writes Mr. Oilier, one of 
the honorary secretaries of the Leigh Hunt 
Memorial Fund, "I requested Mr. Dickens to 
inaugurate the monument in Kensal Green 



Cemetery, and to deliver a short address on the 
spot — a task which was afterwards excellently 
performed by Lord Houghton." To this the 
great novelist replied : . 

" My dear Mr. Ollier, — I am very sensi- 
ble of the feeling of the committee towards me, 
and I receive their invitation (couA^eyed through 
you) as a most acceptable mark of their consid- 
eration. But I have a very strong objection to 
speech-making beside graves. I do not expect 
or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other 
men ; still it is so serious with me, and the idea 
of ever being the subject of such a ceremony 
myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must 
decline to officiate. Faithfully yours always, 

" Charles Dickens. 
" Edmund Olliek, Esq." 

But the most energetic protest against the 
hideous fineries of the undertaker is to be found 
in an article entitled " Trading in Death, " which 
appeared in " Household Words " about Novem- 
ber, 1852. It is not generally known that this 
article — which produced much comment at the 
time — came from his pen. 

On Sunday, the 19th June, Dean Stanley 
preached the funeral sermon in Westminster 
Abbey. An announcement to this effect had 
been made in the daily journals, and long be- 
fore the hour appointed for the service a vast 
body of people had assembled at the doors. Im- 
mediately these were opened every available 
seat was taken, and many thousands of persons 
remained in distant parts of the building until 
the conclusion of the sermon. Among the 
many distinguished individuals present, the two 
who attracted most notice were the Poet Laure- 
ate and Mr. Thomas Carlyle. Mr. Dickens ever 
respected the great genius of Tennyson, and the 
■poet has always expressed the highest admira- 
tion for the writings of Charles Dickens. It 
was fitting, therefore, that the surviving author 
should be present at this last ceremony over 
the great novelist's remains. The poet was ac- 
commodated with a seat inside the sacrarium ; 
Mr. Carlyle sat in the body of the building. 
The family and relations of Mr, Dickens were 
in the gallery to the north of Poet's Corner. 
Dean Stanley was not well ; indeed, he had for 
some days been complaining of severe indispo- 
sition, but, in spite of physical weakness, he de- 
termined to carry out the duty of the day. He 
took as his text the verses in the 15th and 16th 
chapters of St. Luke, which embody the parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus : "He spoke this 
parable. There was a certain rich man, which 
was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared 



100 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



sumptuously every day : and there was a cer- 
tain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at 
his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with 
the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table : 
moreover the dogs came and licked his sores." 

The eloquent and impressive sermon which 
followed was listened to with breathless atten- 
tion, and many a cheek was moist with tears 
during its progress. There was in the whole 
scene something unusually impressive — the 
enormous congregation covering every inch of 
ground in choir, and sacrarium, and transepts ; 
the unbroken silence, or broken only by sobs ; 
the careworn, delicate face and attenuated form 
of the preacher, struggling against overwhelming 
bodily weakness to reach the congregation that 
hung on his lips. 

After commenting at some length upon the 
parables of the New Testament, and especially 
upon the one selected for their consideration 
that morning, the preacher thus applied the 
text: 

"It is said to have been the distinguishing 
glory of a famous Spanish saint that she was 
the advocate of the absent. That is precisely 
the advocacy of this divine parable, and of those 
modern parables which most represent its spirit 
— the advocacy, namely, of the poor, the absent, 
the neglected, of the weaker side, whom, not see- 
ing, we are tempted to forget. It was the part 
of him whom we have lost to make the rich 
man, faring sumptuously every day, not fail to 
see the presence of the poor man at his gate. 
The suffering inmates of our work-houses — the 
neglected children in the dens and caves of this 
great city — the starved, ill-used boys in remote 
schools, far from the observation of men — these 
all felt a new ray of sunshine poured into their 
dark prisons, and a new interest awakened in their 
forlorn and desolate lot, because an unknown 
friend had pleaded their cause with a voice that 
rang through the palaces of the great as well as 
through the cottages of the poor. In his pages, 
with gaunt figures and hollow voices, they were 
made to stand and speak before those who had 
before hardly dreamed of their existence. But 
was it mere compassion which this created ? 
The same master-hand which drew the sorrows 
of the English poor drew also the picture of the 
unselfishness, the kindness, the courageous pa- 
tience, and the tender thoughtfulness that lie 
concealed under many a coarse exterior, and are 
to be found in many a degraded home. When 
the little work-house boy wins his way, pure 
and undefiled, through the mass of wickedness 
around him — when the little orphan girl, who 
brings thoughts of heaven into the hearts of all 
around her, is as the very gift of God to the old 



man who sheltered her life — these are scenes 
which no human being can read without being 
the better for it. He labored to teach us that 
there is even in the worst of mankind a soul of 
goodness — a soul worth revealing, worth re- 
claiming, worth regenerating. He labored to 
teach the rich and educated how this better side 
was to be found, even in the most neglected 
Lazarus, and to tell the poor no less to respect 
this better part of themselves — to remember that 
they also have a calling to be good and great, 
if they will but hear it. 

* ik 9iC !<l ■!( >)( 

"There is one more thought that arises on 
this occasion. As, in the parable, we are forc- 
ibly impressed with the awful solemnity of the 
other world, so on this day a feeling rises in us 
before which the most brilliant powers of genius 
and the most lively sallies of wit wax faint. 
When, on Tuesday last, we stood beside that 
open grave, in the still deep silence of the sum- 
mer morning, in the midst of this vast solitary 
space, broken only by that small band of four- 
teen mourners, it was impossible not to feel 
that there is something more sacred than any 
worldly glory, however bright — or than any 
mausoleum, however mighty — and that is the 
return of the human soul into the hands of its 
Maker. Many, many are the feet that have 
trodden, and will tread, the consecrated ground 
around his grave. Many, many are the hearts 
which, both in the old world and the new, are 
drawn towards it as towards the resting-place of 
a dear personal friend. Many are the flowers 
that have been strewn — many the tears that 
have been shed — by the grateful affection of the 
poor that have cried — of the fatherless — and of 
those that have none to help them. May I 
speak to them a few sacred words, that will 
come perhaps with a new meaning and a deeper 
force, because they come from the lips of their 
lost friend — because they are the most solemo 
utterances of lips now closed forever in the 
grave ? They are extracted from the will of 
Charles Dickens, dated May 12, 18G9, and will 
now be heard by many for the first time. After 
the most emphatic injunctions respecting the 
inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private 
manner of his funeral — injunctions which have 
been carried out to the very letter — he thus 
continues : 

" ' 7 direct that my name he inscribedin plain 
English letters on my tomb. I conjure my friends 
on no account to make me the subject of any monu- 
ment, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest 
my claim to the remembrance of my country on my 
published works, and to the remembrance of my 
friends in their experience of me in addition 



LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 



101 



thereto. I commit my soul to the mercy of God, 
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; 
and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to 
guide themselves by the teaching of the New Tes- 
tament, in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in 
any mans narrow constjniction of its letter here or 
there.' 

"In that simple but sufficient faith he lived 
and died. In that simple and sufficient faith 
he bids you live and die. If any of you have 
learnt from his works the value — the eternal 
value — of generosity, of purity, of kindness, of 
unselfishness, and have learnt to show these in 
your own hearts and lives, then remember that 
these are the best monuments, memorials, and 
testimonials of the friend whom you have loved, 
and who loved with a marvellous and exceeding 
love his children, his country, and his fellow- 
men. These are monuments which he would 
not refuse, and which the humblest and poorest 
and youngest here have it in their power to 
raise to his memory." 

The beautiful anthem, "When the ear heard 
him," was then sung, and the remainder of the 
service was gone through. The dispersion of 
the congregation was a work of time, for, al- 



though three doors were open, nearly every per- 
son present passed out by Poet's Corner, in or- 
der to take a last look at Charles Dickens's 
grave. 

He lies, without one of his injunctions re- 
specting his funeral having been violated, sur- 
rounded by poets and men of genius. Shak- 
speare's marble effigy looks upon his grave ; at 
his feet are Dr. Johnson and David Garrick ; 
his head is by Addison and Handel ; while 
Oliver Goldsmith, Rowe, Southey, Campbell, 
Thomson, Sheridan, Macaulay, and Thacke- 
ray, or their memorials, encircle him. Thus 
" Poet's Corner," the most familiar spot in the 
whole Abbey, has received an illustrious addi- 
tion to its peculiar glory. Separated from 
Dickens's grave, by the statues of Shakspeare, 
Southey, and Thomson, and close by the door 
to "Poet's Corner," are the memorials of Ben 
Jonson, Dr. Samuel Butler, Milton, Spenser, 
and Gray ; while Chaucer; Dryden, Cowley, 
Mason, Shadwell, and Prior are hard by, and 
tell the by-stander, with their wealth of great 
names, how 

"These poets near our princes sleep, 
And iu one grave their mansion keep." 



APPENDIX. 



"NDER this heading a few detached anec- 
dotes, and some additional particulars, are 
nven : 



The First Hint of "Pickwick." — A great 
deal has been said as to the origin of ' ' Pickwick, " 
and in the chapter devoted to a consideration of 
this favorite work the present writer has stated 
from whence the name, at least, was taken. 
He did not, however, for the moriient remeih- 
ber a conversation upon the subject which he 
had with a friend not long since, which convcK- 
sation was shortly followed by a letter from 
him upon this same topic The letter runs 
thus, and the compiler of this little book trusts 
he may be pardoned for quoting it : 

"When I stated to you that Dickens took his 
ideal of novel-writing from the works of Mr. 
Pierce Egan, I had nothing but internal evi- 
dence to go upon. When he began to write, 
the most popular fictions were the descriptions 
of 'Life in London' connected with the names 
of ' Tom ' and ' Jerry.' The grand object of 
Dickens, as a novelist, has been to depict not so 
much human life as human life in London, and 
this he has done after a fashion which he 
learned- from the ' Life in London ' of Mr. 
Pierce Egan. If you remember that once fa- 
mous book, you will call to mind how he takes 
his heroes — the everlasting Tom and Jerry — 
now to a fencing-saloon, now to a dancing- 
house, now to a chop-house, now to a spunging- 
house. The object is not to evolve the charac- 
ters of Tom and Jerry, but to introduce them 
in new scene after new scene. And so you 
will find with Dickens. He invents new char- 
acters, but he never invents them without, at 
the same time, inventing new situations and 
surroundings of London life. Other novelists 
would not object to invent new characters ap- 
pearing in the same position of life as the char- 
acters in some preceding novel, and trusting for 
novelty to the newness of the surroundings and 
the situation. Dickens insists upon putting 
the new characters into a new and unexpected 
trade — doll-making perhaps, or news-vending 
— and he has always in view some new phase 
of London life which he is far more anxious to 
exhibit than the characters without which it is 
impossible to bring the phase into prominence. 
If you look to his writings, or if you talk to 
him, you will find that his first thought is to 



find out something new about London life — 
some new custom or trade or mode of living — 
and his second thought is to imagine the peo- 
ple engaged in that custorn or trade or mode of 
living. Now this is Pierce Egan's style — and 
Dickens, with rare genius, and with large sym- 
pathies, has followed in grooves which the once 
celebrated Pierce laid down. Pierce Egan 
had no wit, and his conversations are not worth 
mentioning. Dickens riots in wit, and what 
Pierce would have shown in a description, 
Dickens makes out in a conversation. But the 
objects of the two men to magnify London life, 
and to show it in all its phases, were the 
same." 

Upon examining Pierce Egan's "Finish " — 
a sequel to his ' ' Life in London " — we certain- 
ly find the characters are somewhat similar to 
those in "Pickwick." In other matters, too, a 
parallel may be drawn — thus, the Bench in- 
stead of the Fleet, and the archery match in- 
stead of the shooting party. But the most cu- 
rious coincidence is that the "Fat Knight" 
— the counterpart of Mr. Pickwick — is first met 
by Corinthian Tom at the village of Pickwick .'* 



Dickens and the "Morning Chronicle." 
— Various and conflicting accounts of Dick- 
ens's earliest " Sketches" have been given, and 
of the circumstances under which he first con- 
tributed to the evening edition of the "Morn- 
ing Chronicle ;" but the following extract, 
which we have been permitted to make from a 
long unpublished letter, will set the question 
at rest. The letter was addressed to the late 
Mr. George Hogarth, then connected with the 
"Morning Chronicle," and was the beginning 
of a friendship between the two which ended in 
Mr. Dickens marrying Mr. Hogarth's daughter : 

«'* * * As you begged me to write an original 
sketch for the first number of the new evening 
paper, and as I trust to your kindness to refer 
my application to the proper quarter, should I 



* The writer thinks it scarcely necessary to say that 
these remarks upon the origin — the first hint — of 
" Pickwick " are not to be understood as intended in 
any way to detract from the great novelist's fair fame 
for originality. On the contrary, it is believed that 
the time has now come when it will be a delight with 
students to trace his reading, and, if possible, catch 
some glimpse of the origin of those inimitable charac- 
ters which will live forever in English fiction. 



104 



APPENDIX. 



be unreasonably ov improperly trespassing upon 
you, I beg to ask whether it is probable that if 
I commenced a series of articles under some 
attractive title for the "Evening Clironicle," 
its conductors would think I had any claim to 
some additional remuneration — of course, of no 
great amount — for doing so. 

"Let me beg you not to misunderstand 
my meaning. Whatever the reply may be, I 
])romised you an article, and shall supply it 
with the utmost readiness, and with an anxious 
desire to do my best ; which I honestly assure 
you would be the feeling with which I should 
always receive any request coming personally 
from yourself. * * * I merely wish to put it 
to the proprietors — first, whether a continua- 



tion of light papers, in the style of my ' Street 
Sketches,' would be considered of use to the 
new paper; and, secondly, if so, whether they 
do not think it fair and reasonable that — tak- 
ing my share of the ordinary reporting business 
of the 'Chronicle' besides — I should receive 
something for the papers beyond my ordinary 
salary as a reporter?"* 

The offer was accepted, the then sub-editor 
informs us, and Mr. Dickens received an in- 
crease in his salary of from five guineas per 
week to seven guineas. 



Portraits or Dickens. — Besides those cnn- 
merated in the body of this book, there are oth- 
ers which should be mentioned. A very re- 




DANIEL MACMSE, B.A. 



Taken iu 1S30, and given as a frontispiece to "Nicho- 
las Nickleby." 




X^ 



CHAELEB XE81.IE, E.A. 




COUNT d'ORGAT. 

From a pencil sketch made in 1841. 




PHOTOGKAPH. 



From his painting of Dickens as "The Copper Cap- 
tain " in "Every Man iu his Own Humor." 1846. 



From the portrait considered by Mr. Dickens as his 
best likeness, 1870. 



Dated " 13 Furnival's Inn, Tuesday evening, January 20, [1835]." 



APPENDIX. 



105 



markable one was etclied about 1837, with the 
name "Phiz '" at the foot. It represents Dick- 
ens seated on a chair, and holding a port-folio. 
In the background a Punch-and-Judy perform- 
ance is going on. The face has none of that 
delicacy and softness about it which are observ- 
able in the Maclise portrait. It looks, however, 
more like the real young face of the older man, 
as revealed in the photograph now publishing. 
This portrait is very rare, and it is understood 
that it was withdrawn from publication soon af- 
ter it appeared, Mr. Hablot K. Browne, the 
genuine " Phiz," denies all knowledge of it. 

There exists a portrait by S. Lawrence, which 
was lithographed by W. Taylor. 

In 1856, Ary Scheffer's portrait of the great 
novelist was exhibited in the Royal Academy. 
It was hard and cold, and gave general dissat- 
isfaction. 

Mr. Prith painted a portrait of his friend, 
representing him writing his celebrated compo- 
sitions at his plain, but workman-like, desk. 
This portrait is now the property of the great 
novelist's friend and executor, Mr. John Porster, 
and in due time will be hung on the walls of 
the National Portrait Gallery. In the Exhibi- 
tion of the Royal Academy for 1857, Mr. Prith 
exhibited a picture (No. 125), "Kate Nickleby 
at Madame Mantalini's." Kate is holding a 
mantle, while Miss Knagg (reflected in the che- 
val glass) is trying on another. 



The Names of Dicke>*s*s Characters. — It 
is well known that the quaint surnames of his 
characters, concerning which essays have been 
nTitten, were the result of much pains-taking. 
Dickens, with a genius which might have justi- 
tied his trusting it implicitly and solely, placed 
his chief reliance on his own hard labor. It is 
said that when he saw a strange or odd name 
on a shop-board, or in walking through a vil- 
lage or country town, he entei'ed it in his pock- 
et-book, and added it to his reserve list. Then, 
runs the story, when he wanted a striking sur- 
name for a new character, he had but to take 
the first half of one real name, and to add it to 
the second half of another, to produce the ex- 

\ act effect upon the eye and ear of the reader he 

• desired.* 

* * * In "Notes and Queries" for August 
28, 1858 (this periodical takes its motto from 
one of Mr. Dickens's characters), it was suggest- 
ed that the name of " Carker " was framed 
from the Greek, as so much is said of Mr. Cark- 
er's teeth. Mr. Dickens, however, replied to 
this, that the coincidence was undesigned. It 
has been further suggested that the name was 
made up from "canker" and "carking" (as 

I in " carking care "), which are very expressive 
of the blighting influence possessed by Carker. 
It has been stated that the Pickwickian names 

I of .Wardle, Lowten, and Dowler occur in the 

1 "Annual Register's" account of the Duke of 

' York's trial, 1809. 

f>ome inquiry is made as to the names of 
'^''^'^^ » " Paily News," June 11, 1S70. 



Mr. Dickens's characters in an article on the 
novelist, in " Blackwood's Magazine," April, 
1855. 



Description of "Boz" in 1814. — Mr. R. 
H. Home, in his " New Spirit of the Age," gives 
this graphic description of him as he appeared 
when a young man : " Mr. Dickens is, in pri- 
vate, very much what might be expected from 
his works — by no means an invariable coinci- 
dence. He talks much or little, according to 
his sympathies. His conversation is genial. 
He hates argument ; in fact, he is unable to ar- 
gue — a common case with impulsive characters 
who see the whole, and feel it crowding and 
struggling at once for immediate utterance. 
He never talks for effect, but for the truth or 
for the fun of the thing. He tells a story ad- 
mirably, and generally with humorous exagger- 
ations. His sympathies are of the broadest, 
and his literary tastes appreciate all excellence. 
He is a great admirer of the poetry of Tenny- 
son. Mr. Dickens has singular personal activi- 
ty, and is fond of games of practical skill. He 
is also a great walker,* and very much given to 
dancing Sir Roger de Coverley. In private, the 
general impression of him is that of a first-rate 
practical intellect, with ' no nonsense ' about 
him. Seldom, if ever, has any man been more 
beloved by contemporary authors, and by the 
public of his time." 



Description of Dickens in 1852. — Miss 
Clarke, an American lady, who visited Eng- 
land in 1852 with Miss Cushman and a friend, 
in her " Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Eu- 
rope " (written under the assumed name of 
Grace Greenwood), says : 

"He is rather slight, with a symmetrical 
head, spiritedly borne, and eyes beaming alike 
with genius and humor. Yet, for all the power 
and beauty of these eyes, their changes seemed 
to me to be from light to light. I saw them in 
no profound, pathetic depths, and there was 
around them no tragic shadowing. But I vras 
foolish to look for these on such an occasion, 
when they were very properly left in the au- 
thor's study, with pens, ink, and blotting-paper, 
and the last written pages of 'Bleak House.' " 



Boz's Table Habits. — Some of the Ameri- 
can newspaper paragraphs about his personal 
tastes gave him considerable amusement. Said 
a Temperance Journal : 

"The prevailing idea that Mr. Dickens is 
accustomed to a very generous diet, which has 
mainly arisen from the jovial tone of his writ- 
ings, is quite incorrect, for we are credibly in- 

* " So mucli of my travelling is done on foot that, if 
I cherished betting propensities, I should probably be 
found registered in sporting newspapers under some 
such title as the Elastic Novice, challenging all eleven- 
stone mankind to competition in walking. My last 
special feat was turning out of bed at two, after a 
hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thir- 
ty miles into the country to breakfast.— (" Sly Neigh- 
borhoods," "Uncommercial Traveller.") 



106 



APPENDIX. 



formed that he is very careful in such mat- 
ters!" 



The MS. of "Oliver Twist." — A portion 
of the MS. of "Oliver Twist," which originally 
appeared iu "Bentley's Miscellany," is still in 
Mr. Bentley's possession. It has been suggest- 
ed that it might fittingly be placed in the Brit- 
ish Museum by the side of the MS. of Sterne's 
" Sentimental Journey." 



Dickens's Benevolence. — The late Sheri- 
dan Knowles, in a letter to a friend, gave an 
instance of his generosity: "Poor Haydn, the 
author of the ' Dictionary of Dates ' and the 
'Book of Dignities' (I believe I am right in 
the titles), was working, to my knowledge, 
under the pressure of extreme destitution, ag- 
gravated by wretchedly bad health, and a heart 
slowly bx'eaking through efforts indefatigable, 
but vain, to support in comfort a wife and a 
young family. I could not afford him at the 
moment any material relief, and I wrote to 
Charles Dickens, stating his miserable case. 
My letter was no sooner received than it was 
answered — and how? By a visit to his suffer- 
ing brother, and not of condolence only, but of 
assistance — rescue ! Charles Dickens offered his 
purse to poor Haydn, and subsequently brought 
the case before the Literary Society, and so ap- 
pealingly as to produce an immediate supply of 
£G0. I need not say another word. I need not 
remark that such benevolence is not likely to 
occur solitarily. The fact I communicate I 
learned from poor Haydn himself Dickens 
never breathed a word to me about it." 

Hook and Dickens. — "A comparison seems 
almost to force itself upon our notice between 
the writings of Hook and those of a still more 
popular author, Mr. Charles Dickens. We 
shall not be tempted to pursue it farther that to 
remark that, their subject-matter being in some 
measure the same, the former seems to survey 
society from a level more elevated and more 
distant than his competitor; his delineations 
are in consequence genial and sketchy, those of 
the latter more technical and minute. Hook 
gives you a landscape, while ' Boz ' is tracing 
every leaf of a particular tree. The same 
analogy holds good as regards their moral 
teaching. Hook is pithy, pointed, and off- 
hand ; the reflections of Mr. Dickens are elabo- 
rated with a care that occasionally, perhaps, de- 
tracts from their effect. Hook has undoubtedly 
the advantage of more experience of the world, 
but the palm of originality must, we should 
think, be awarded to his rival." — Barham's 
^if^ of Theodore Hook. 



easily read, were by no means easily written. 
He labored at them prodigiously, both in their 
conception and execution. During the whole 
time that he had a book in hand, he was much 
more thoughtful and preoccupied than in his 
leisure moments." 

*^* Another friend has written : " His hours 
and days were spent by rule. He rose at a cer- 
tain time, he retired at another, and though no 
precisian, it was not often that his arrangements 
varied. His hours for writing were between 
breakfast and luncheon, and when there was 
any work to be done no temptation was suffi- 
ciently strong to cause it to be neglected. This 
order and regularity followed him through the 
day. His mind was essentially methodical ; 
and in his long walks, in his recreations, in his 
labor, he was governed by rules laid down for 
himself by himself, rules well studied before- 
hand, and rarely departed from. The so-called 
men of business, the people whose own exclusive 
devotion to the science of profit and loss makes 
them regard doubtfully all to whom that same 
science is not the main object in life, would 
have been delighted and amazed at this side of 
Dickens's character." 

*^* "No writer set before himself more la- 
boriously the task of giving the public the very 
best. A great artist, who once painted his por- 
trait while he was in the act of writing one of 
the most popular of his stories, relates that he 
was astonished at the troublq Dickens seemed 
to take over his work, at the number of forms 
in which he would write down a thought before 
he hit out the one which seemed to his fastidious 
fancy the best, and at the comparative small- 
ness of manuscript each day's sitting seemed to 
have produced. Those, too, who have seen the 
original MSS. of his works, many of which he 
had bound and kept at his residence at Gad's 
Hill, describe them as full of interlineations and 
alterations." 



Methodical Habits and Perseverance. 
— One who knew him well says : " He did not 
work by fits and starts, but had regular hours for 
labor, commencing about ten and ending about 
two. It is an old saying that easy writing is 
very difficult reading ; Mr. Dickens's works, so 



Manner of- Literary Composition. — A 
writer in a weekly journal says : " I remember 
well one evening, spent with him by appoint- 
ment, not wasted by intrusion, when I found 
him, according to his own phrase, ' picking up 
the threads' of ' Martin Chuzzlewit ' from the 
printed sheets of the half volume that lay before 
him. This accounts for the seeming incom- 
pleteness of some of his plots ; in others, the 
design was too strong and sure to be influenced 
by any outer consideration. He was only con- 
firmed and invigorated by the growing applause, 
and marched on, like a successful general, with 
each victory made easier by the preceding one. 
It seemed hardly to come within his nature to 
compose in solitary fashion, and wait the event 
of a whole work. No doubt this resulted in 
part from his character as a journalist ; and so 
did his utter disdain of the shams which it is the 
express province of journalism to detect and 
expose. 

" His composition, easy as it seems in the 
reading — indeed, so natural that it would be 



APPENDIX. 107 

diflScult to substitute any truer word in any of trial unite in testifying to the open-handed 
place — was, we are told, elaborate and slow, justice of the man." 
But in his happier days the process was by no 



means wearisome. It was the love of the idea, 

that could not let it go till he had nursed it to 

its utmost growth. In this he resembled many \ spared no pains and withheld no exertion to 

of the greatest humorists, whose enjoyment of I serve those whom he thought worthy, and to 



"Never was human being more 'thorough.' 
His friendship was a fervent reality, and he 



I 



their own fancies is evidenced by the impossi- 
bility of passing them into print while a single 
mirth-stirring thought or Avord could be added 
to make the picture perfect. The result was 
invaluable. With the exception only of Shak- 
speare, among English writers of drama and 
fiction, no other author than Dickens yields so 
many sentences on each page of sterling value in 
themselves ; no other author can be read and 
re-read with such certainty of finding fresh 
pleasure or; every perusal. Nowhere, with the 
one exception, does so much thought go to finish 
the production. It is jeweller's work, inlaying 
and enriching every part."* 



"The Chief." — In his own immediate lite- 
rary circle, and among those who were on the 
most familiar terms with him, the name " Mr. 
Dickens," or "Mr, Charles Dickens," or even 
" Charles," with his most intimate friends, was 
never heard. The respect felt for his genius — 
his superiority — took a moi'e striking, although 
more familiar form. He was invariably spoken 
of as "the Chief!" At "All the Yea^Eound" 
office, the question was never, "Is Mr. Dickens 
in?" but " Has the ' Chief arrived?" "Is the 
'Chief in?" 



Blue Ink. — The present habit among literary 
men — especially among those formerly connect- 
ed with " Household Words, " and more recent- 
ly with " All the Year Round " — of using blue 
in preference to black ink, arose with Mr. Dick- 
ens. " The Chief" disliked the necessity of 
blotting his MS. in the progress of composition, 
and on finding that a certain make of blue ink 
dried almost immediately it left the pen, he in- 
variably used that kind ever after ; and thus be- 
gan the fashion for blue ink among London 
journalists. 



Dickens in Private Life. — One who was 
intimately acquainted with him says: "To 
those who never saw Dickens, and who ask 
whether he was like his works, we answer 
emphatically, Yes. When in congenial society, 
his humor was so abundant and overflowing, that 
the impression it gave the listener was that it 
would have been painful to check it ; while in 
nobility and tenderness, in generous sympathy 
for all that is elevating and pure, in lofty scorn 
of the base, in hatred of the wrong, Dickens the 
author and Dickens the man was one. The 
stories of his goodness and generosity are end- 
less. His was the common fate of having to 
bear the burdens of others as well as his own, 
and those who knew him under circumstances 

* " Weekly Dispatch," June IS, 1S70. 



whom his countenance was valuable. The 
whole energy of his nature — and the passage in 
' David Copperfield, ' in which the hero attributes 
whatever success he has acquired in this life to 
his faculty of devoting his whole strength and 
'thoughts to the subject in hand, whatever it 
might be, precisely describes Charles Dickens 
himself — was given to the friend as readily and 
fully as to the day's work ; and it would be im- 
possible to say more. Again, this kindly help- 
fulness was more valuable in Dickens than in 
most men, from his shrewd common sense, his 
worldly wisdom, his business habits, his intense 
regard for accuracy in detail. Whatever he 
said should be done, those who knew him re- 
garded as accomplished. There was no forget- 
fulness, no procrastination, no excuse, when the 
time for granting a promised favor came."* 



Sympathy with Wokking-men. — A friend, 
writing in the "Observer," says: "He took a 
certain honest pride in receiving and returning 
the salutations of working-people personally un- 
known to him as he walked along the city's 
streets or the country roads, and he was greatly 
pleased by the reception at Christmas-time of 
numberless small presents, generally of provis- 
ions, sent to him, ' in honor of the season,' by 
humble and anonymous admirers." 



A Beggar's Estimate of his Generosity. 
— Dickens has, like others in this world, been 
made to suffer every now and then for his good 
nature. High up on a list, taken from the 
pocket of a begging-letter writer, of persons easi- 
ly induced to give money to those who pleaded 
distress, was found the name of " Charles Dick- 
ens," in company with that of an equally kindly, 
but more wealth j'-, charitable person, Miss Bur- 
dett Coutts. His own account of how he has 
been victimized by the clever tales of systematic 
impostors has been told in his own inimitable 
way in " Household Words." 



Paragraph Disease. — Writing to a friend 
in Boston, Dickens said: "I notice that about 
once in every seven years I become the victim 
of a paragraph disease. It breaks out in Eng- 
land, travels to India by the overland route, 
gets to America per Cunard line, strikes the 
base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding 
back to Europe, mostly perishes on the steppes 
of Russia fi'om inanition and extreme cold." 



Dickens and Thackeray. — Mr. Hodder 
tells us that "Thackeray did not keep copies 
of his own books. I was at his house when he 

* " Daily News," June 11, 1S70. 



108 



APPENDIX. 



had completed the 'Newcomes,' and, on look- 
ing at the book-shelves in his studio, I saw a 
newly-bound copy of tliat work, but neither 
'Vanity Fair,' 'Pendennis,' nor 'Esmond.' I 
spoke of this strange want in his library ; ' for 
(said I) Charles Dickens has all his own works 
neatly bound in the order of publication.' 
'Yes,' answered Thackeray, 'I know he has, 
and so ought I; but fellows borrow them or 
steal them, and I try to keep them, and can't.' " 

*^* '-In the mere matter of literary style 
there is a very obvious ditterence. Mr. Thack- 
eray, according to the general opinion, is the 
more terse and idiomatic, and Mr. Dickens the 
more diffuse and luxuriant writer. There is an 
Horatian strictness and strength in Thackeray 
which satisfies the more cultivated taste, and 
wins the respect of the severest critic ; but 
Dickens, if he is the more rapid and careless, on 
the whole, seems more susceptible to passion, 
and rises to a keener and wilder song. Kefer- 
ving the difference of style to its origin in dif- 
ference of intellectual constitution, critics are 
accustomed to say that Thackeray's is the mind 
of closer and harder, and Dickens's the mind of 
looser and richer, texture — that the intellect of 
the one is the more penetrating and reflective, 
and that of the other the more excursive and 
intuitive." — Masson's "British Novelists and 
their Styles." 

*5^* An anonymous writer says: "The first 
time I heard Mr. Thackeray read in public, he 
paid a tribute to 'Boz.' It was the night after 
the Oxford election, in which Mr. Thackeray 
was an unsuccessful candidate, and the kind- 
hearted author hastened up to town to fulfill a 
promise to give some readings on behalf of Mr. 
Angus Reach.* I well remember the burst of 
laughter and applause which greeted the open- 
ing words of his reading. ' Walking yesterday 
down the streets of an ancient and well-known 
city, I — ' but here the allusion to Oxford was 
recognized, and he had to wait until the merri- 
ment it created had ceased. In alluding to 
Charles Dickens, Mr. Thackeray, after speaking 
with abhorrence of the impurity of the writings 
of Sterne, went on to say: 'The foul satyr's 
eyes leer out of the leaves constantly ; the last 
words the famous author wrote were bad and 
wicked — the last lines the poor stricken wretch 
penned were for pity and pardon. I think of 
these past writers, and of one who lives amongst 
us now, and am grateful for the innocent laugh- 
ter, and the sweet and unsullied pages, which 
the author of " David Copperfield " gives to my 
children.' The author of ' David Copperfield ' 
was taken by surprise, and looked immensely 
hard at the ceiling, as if trying to persuade 
himself that he was unknown to the audience. 
On the same night I heard Thackeray read 
Hood's celebrated lines, ' One more unfortu- 
nate,' etc." 

* The writer is here in error. The lecture was not 
delivered on behalf of Mr. Eeach, but for the fuud then 
being raised to the memory of the late Douglas Jer- 
rold. 



Anecdote of Abraham Lincoi^'. — Mr. Ar- 
thur Locker says that the following sad story 
was related to Mr. Dickens by the late Mr. Ed- 
win Stanton, the famous Secretary of War in 
the United States Cabinet, On Good-Friday, 
1865, there was a Cabinet meeting at Washing- 
ton, and Mr. Stanton chanced to enter the coun- 
cil chamber some time after the other members 
had assembled. As he entered he heard the 
President say, "Well, gentlemen, this is only 
amusement. I think we had better now turn to 
business." During the meeting he noticed that 
Mr. Lincoln was remarkably grave and sedate; 
and that, instead of strolling about the room, as 
was his usual wont, dealing out droll remarks, 
he sat bolt upright in his chair. On leaving 
the Cabinet, Mr. Stanton asked one of the other 
Members why the President's manner was so 
peculiar, and received the following explanation : 
" When we assembled to-day, Mr. Lincoln said, 
' Gentlemen, I dreamt a strange dream last night 
for the third time, and on, each occasion some- 

1 thing remarkable has followed upon it. After 
the first dream came the battle of Bull Run [Mr. 
Dickens could not remember the second event], 
and now the dream has come again. I dreamt 

} that I was in a boat on a lake, drifting along 
without either oars or sails, when — ' At this 

I moment you," said the Member, addressing Mr. 
Stanton, " opened the door, whereupon the Presi- 
dent checked himself, and said, 'I think we had 
better turn to business.' So we have lost the 
conclusion of the dream." 

I And it was lost forever. The council met at 
half-past two, and on the same evening Presi- 
dent Lincoln lay dead, slain by the pistol-shot 

' of Wilkes Booth. 



The Contributors to " Household 
Words." — The earliest contributor to "House- 
hold Words" may be said to have been Mrs. 
Gaskell, for, after the beautiful little introducto- 
ry address by Charles Dickens, the new period- 
ical opened with a fine story from her pen. 
Many of the small band of writers who had ral- 
lied round Mr. Dickens, and who formed what 
may be called the staff of the journal, were com- 
paratively unknown ; some were altogether nov- 
ices, whom Mr. Dickens's quick discernment of 
talent had marked out as useful collahorateurs. 
More than one young writer, whose name has 
since become familiar to the public, made his 
debut here. One of the first contributors was 
Mr. W. H. Wills, who had been editor of 
" Chambers's Journal," and who for years act- 
ed as Mr. Dickens's working editor and confi- 
dential secretary. Besides the contributors 
enumerated on p. 60, there were Mr. R. H. 
Home, the author of "Orion," Douglas Jer- 
rold, and Mr. James Hannay, who wrote most 
of the sea-sketches. Mr. Sala's "Key of the 
Street," published here, was, we believe, his first 
appearance as a magazine writer. Among oth- 
er regular contributors may be mentioned Per- 
cy Fitzgerald, Wilkie and Charles Collins, Sid- 
ney Blanchard, Mrs, Gaskell, Walter Thorn- 



APPENDIX. 



109 



^ bury, Mrs. Linton, Robert Brough, Miss Amelia 
Edwards, Mr. J. C. Parkinson, Blanchard Jer- 
rold, W. Allingham. The names of all the con- 
tributors to the journal, however, would occupy 
more space than we have at command. 



"The Mystery of Edwin Drood." — Con- 
cerning the completion of this, Messrs. Chap- 
man & Hall, the publishers, have addressed the 
following letter to the " Times :" 

" Sir, — We find that erroneous reports are 
in circulation respecting 'The Mystery of Ed- 
win Drood,' the novel on which Mr. Dickens 
was at work when he died. It has been sug- 
gested that the tale is to be finished by other 
hands. We hope you will allow us to state in 
your columns that Mr. Dickens has left three 
numbers complete, in addition to those already 
published, this being one-half of the story as it 
was intended to be written. These numbers 
will be published, and the fragment will so re- 
main. No other writer could be permitted by 
us to complete the work which Mr. Dickens 
has left." 

*^* A letter had been sent to Mr. Dickens 
relative to a figure of speech in Chapter X. of 
" Edwin Drood," which figure of speech, the 
writer stated, had been taken from the descrip- 
tion of the sufferings of our Saviour, as given in 
the New Testament, and applied in a way to 
wound the feelings of Christian readers. The 
author of "Edwin Drood " wrote the following 
reply the day preceding his death. It has al- 
ready been published as " his last words." 

"Dear Sir, — It would be quite inconceiv- 
able to me, but for your letter, that any 
reasonable reader could possibly attach 
a scriptural reference to a passage in 
a book of mine, reproducing a much- 
abused social figure of speech, impressed ^ 
into all sorts of service, on all sorts of 
inappropriate occasions, without the faint- 
est connection of it with its original 
source. I am truly shocked to find that 
any reader can make the mistake. I 
have always striven in my writings to 
express veneration for the life and les- 
sons of our Saviour ; because I feel it, 
and because I re-wrote that history for 
my children — every one of whom knew 
it from having it repeated to them, long 
before they could read, and almost as 
soon as they could speak. But I have 
never made proclamation of this from the 
housetops. Faithfully yours, 

"Charles Dickens." 



But it may be mentioned that "Edwin 
Drood " is also having an independent issue* 
in America ; and it is somewhat remarkable that 
the last words in the part issued there should 
likewise have an almost prophetic meaning : 

" There, there ! there ! Get to bed, poor 
man, and cease to jabber ! With that he extin- 
guished his light, pulled up the bed-clothes 
around him, and with another sigh shut out the 
world.''^ 

*^* Relative to the sketch of opium-smoking 
which occurs in "Edwin Drood," Sir John 
Bowring has written to the "Daily News:" 
" Connected with the name and history of 
Charles Dickens, and illustrative of his habits 
of observation, it may not be amiss to record 
that on the publication of 'Edwin Drood's 
Mystery ' I wrote to him explaining what ap- 
peared to me an inaccuracy in his description 
and picture of opium-smoking, and sent to him 
an original Chinese sketch of the form of the 
pipe and the manner of its employment in 
China. Expressing much gratification with 
my communication, he informed me that before 
he wrote the chapter he had personally visited 
the eastern districts of London, in the neigh- 
borhood of the docks, and had only recorded 
what he had himself seen in that locality. No 
doubt that the Chinaman whom he described 
had accommodated himself to English usage, 
and that our great and faithful dramatist here 
as elsewhere most correctly portrayed a piece 
of actual life." 



Gad's Hill House. — It has been suggested 




*^* It has been remarked that the con- 
cluding words of the last number of " Ed- 
win Drood,"* gad's hill place, ukar kociiester (1S60-'T0). 

" Comes to an end— for the time,'' [Mr. Dickens's last residence. Here "Great Espectalious," 

"Our Mutual Friend," "The Uncommercial Traveller, and 

have a mournful significance, when read portions of "Edwin Drood," were written. As is well known, 

in the lijiht of after events. he died here, 9th June, 1S70.] 



June 1, 1S70. 



" Every Saturday," June 9, ISTO. 



no 



APPENDIX. 




THE SWISS CHALET. 



[Presented to Mr. Dickens by his English friends in 
Switzerland. It forms a summer-house in the grounds 
at Gad's Hill.] 



that Charles Dickens's favorite abiding-place 
should be purchased by a general subsciijiiion, 
and kept as a national memento of the author. 
It is further suggested that the house should be 
retained by Mr. Dickens's family for a term, 
to be named by themselves, at the expiration of 
which, with their consent, the place should 
merge in trustees. Dickens passed the morn- 
ing and afternoon of his last day on earth in 
the chalet presented to him by a few Swiss ad- 
mirers two years since, which is erected in the 
shrubbery opposite his residence, and approach- 
ed by a tunnel underneath the turnpike road. 
This chalet, embosomed in the foliage of some 
very fine trees, stands upon an eminence com- 
manding a magnificent view of the mouth of 
the Thames and the opposite coast of li^ssex. 
It was a favorite retreat of Dickens. 



THE END. 



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